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R YOICE OF THE PRfilRIE 



POEMS AND PROSE. 



Wiehelm Htjgo Meyer. 



MEYER-HENNEY PUBLISHING GO. 
DE SMET, SOUTH DAKOTA- 



CONG"fSS, 

JUN. 8 1903 

COPVWfQHT EWTRV 

-- 1C?- 'C £ 
CLASS «■ XXc. No. 

/ ; ■ o ^ 

COPY A. ' 



T^ 



<T 



.e^ 






Copyright 1901, by Wilhelm Hugo Meyer. 



,•• ••' 



«-• ••• 



Respectfully inscribed to my friend, 
SUPT. B. J. WOODBURY. 



De Smet News 
Boo'< Printers 



PREFACE. 

The purpose of this Preface, like many 
others, may be said to attempt to excuse the 
inexcusable. Be that as it may, if there are a 
number of readers of this book who have had, 
in their solitary hours, thoughts of a kindred 
theme, these may suggest new ones. If only 
one — if no more be possible — can find a line 
of sympathy with his feelings, the author is 
repaid. 

W. H. M. 

Dec. 21, iqoo. 

De Smet, S. D. 



A FATAL SUSPICION. 

Down from the hill the rippling rill 

Sped on in merry glee, 
And onward bent in long descent 

Down to the loving sea ; 
While on the shore and gazing o'er 

The wide and foamy waste, 
A spreading sail before the gale 

He saw sweep on in haste. 
And as the sun, his labor done, 
Went down to depths unknown, 
He turned aside to swiftly glide 

Upon the angry foam. 
A twinkling star, a gem afar, 

A jewel of the crown, 
In brightness shone as from her throne 

Her light descended down. 

The birds were sweet in cheer replete, 

And songs of merry tone ; 
The blossoms fair perfumed the air 

Which wafted o'er the zone ; 
And to his ear a sound drew near — 

It was a plaintive cry ; 
He saw a child in sorrow wild 

A little distance by. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Her face was stained with tears that pained 
His sympathetic soul ; 

In sobs she said, "Mamma is dead !"— 

He lost his self-control, 
He asked her name and then in shame 

He saw his sad mis 
In grief he knew her mother true — 

His heart then seemed to break ; 
Five years ago he left in woe 

A wife he thought untrue. 
He left their home and went to roam 

From every one he knew. 

>7ow on this day, down in the bay, 

Her form lies in'the brine, 
And thru these years in bitter tears 

In pain she could but pine. 
2so^v life is gone before the dawn 

When he should see the child : 
In frantic pain and longings vain, 

He sees his error wild ; 
The little girl with dark brown curl 

Bears likeness to his face, 
But free from sin which he is in, 

And free from deep disgrace. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 



A LIFE. 

In a cradle sleeps an infant 

Soon in life to stray ; 
Reckless father, shiftless mother, 

Lead this soul away ; 
And this soul, first sweet and loving, 

Grows to manhood there : 
Weds another to her ruin — 

Parents, stop ! Compare ! 



THE DRUNKARD'S DREAM. 

The thunder peals with fearful sound, 

The rain begins to fall ; 
The lightning flashes to the ground 

And then the streaming squall,— 
And in that mournful cottage home 

Once merry, years ago, 
Now lies a wretch with grunt and groan, 

One who has fallen low. 
Orice even he, a man of pride, 

With manly thought and heart 



10 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Had to the altar led a bride, 

With whom he would not part. 
He promised her a peaceful life, 

To cherish and protect ; 
She is, instead, a wretched wife 

For want of his respect. 
The home he filled with kindness sweet 

A ruin stands today ; 
The words he said with love replete, 

No more he cares to say ; 
No more the smile, no fond embrace, 

No more his tender care, 
But brutal wreck, a sad disgrace 

To her who thought him fair. 

O, see him tremble as he sleeps ! 

His lips begin to shake ; 
A sullen sadness o'er her creeps, 

Her heart begins to ache. 
He dreams of childhood and his home 

When he was young and free, 
Before he had begun to roam 

O'er land and briny sea. 
He dreams of mother on her bed — 

The promise that he gave ; 
The vow he broke— when she was dead- 

To fill a drunkard's grave. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 11 



DO NOT TOUCH IT. 

One day, when but a boy of ten, 
I ran up to the forge with haste ; 

I had no time to lose just then, 
No, not a moment there to waste ; 

A sign I placed for all to view : 
" Don't touch it, then there's naught 
to rue." 

An iron hot I placed below 

The warning sign in black, 
And hid, so none would know, 

A little distance back. 
Just then I heard a howl and whine 

From one who read the painted sign. 

The parson spied the rod, and reached — 
And dropped it down again — 

Then spoke not as in church he preached, 
Nor ended with amen. 

And so it went for quite a while — 
Each one behaved in noisy style. 



12 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 



UEOLA. 

These hoary crags, these aged hills 

At eve in sorrow moan ; 
A legend whispers in its chills 

Of two who died alone ; 
It tells of two, a youth and maid, 

Who married years ago ; 
Two Indian hearts once did evade 

A father's promised blow. 
It tells of how her native heart 

For home began to yearn ; 
They sought the place of nature's art, 

Her native lodge and bourn ; 
How on a lofty, rounded mound 

Fot rest they sought at night, 
How then her father's warriors found 

And slew them both in spite. 
And as I stand upon this place 

Where blood bedewed the sod, 
I fancy here a word of grace 

Comes down from our great God. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 13 



FRAGMENTS. 

Sweet praise is bitter, too, 
If list you must to words untrue; 
A friend's advice some fault to mend 
Is better far that fault to end. 

A thought to action often leads 
The higher thoughts to better deeds; 
But, if the thought be wrong in all, 
If left unsaid needs no recall. 

There is an aim in each man's fate, 
Tho humble he may be; 

If none were small could one be great, 

Above both you and me? 

Sweet pansy blossom, pure and fair, 

Growing by the way, 
When will the frost king cease to spare 

Taking life away? 

Will you, immortal, bloom again 

On the other shore? 
And fairer than down in the glen? 

Tell me, I implore. 



14 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

In sorest need, man stands alone; 

In greatest might, his friends remain. 
Do right, and raise your moral tone, 

Let friendship come or friendship wane. 



WAR. 

Where is thy glory, or is there but shame? 
Where is thy honor, and where is thy fame? 
Is it in slaying, and burning the land? 
Is it in misery or heartless command? 
There is no glory for mortal, tho brave, 
Killing his brother and flogging a slave; 
Leaving a widow in sorrow and pain, 
Starving sweet children, leaving no gain. 

There is no wisdom to kill and debase: 
There is no justice in murderous chase; 
There is small courage deserting a wife, 
2s or is there much glory to enter the strife. 
Leaving a mother, aged and poor, 
Feeble and gray, such woes to endure. 
Fight for your homes, your mothers and 

wives — 
Let others have theirs, and spare them their 

lives ! 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 15 



EVANESCENCE AND 
PERMANENCE. 

The fragrant breeze that fans along 
Is sweet to some because 'tis new ; 

Some friends are kind in word and song 
When new; but fade as morning dew. 

Some hopes are born to live on high, 
While others wane ana pine away ; 

Some win success and shall not die, 
AVhile others at the bottom stay. 



A MIDNIGHT REVERIE. 

I thought of the days that are golden, 
Of the days of the merry and gay ; 

Of the joy and the bliss of the olden 
Time that has now passed away. 

I thought of the brook and the meadow, 
The woods that were green — now bare; 

I thought of the lake in the moonlight, 
Of those who w r ere singing, so fair. 



16 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

As I see, in my dreaming, the sunshine 
That once on me so radiantly fell, 

Mine eyes are wet with the weeping 
That my heart in its grief cannot quell. 

The friends of today are not dearer 
Than those whom I loved in the past ; 

Their smiles, tho sweet, are not fairer 
Than the smiles that tenderly last. 

For my heart was blithe in those moments, 
Was free from the trials and pain 

That come from a life of longing — 
From a hope that is looked for in vain. 



ROUGH RIDERS AT EL 
CANEY. 

Brave boys ! you won a field of glory — 
Each one a hero on that day ; 

Not need you legend, tale or story 
To tell of fiery, flaming fray. 

Who dare impute the spangled banner, 
By freedom's valor set apart, 

When Western heroes, in their manner, 
Dare to stand with honor's heart ? 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 17 

Can Grecian urn reveal more honor, 
Or Roman sword a better steel, 

Than fought in Cuba's bloody corner 
And made the tyrants fairly reel ? 

Rough Rider heroes ! ye were the daring 
Who dared to stand for Cuba's right ; 

When death around you all was staring, 
Ye fought in Freedom's certain might. 



COURTSHIP IN THE GRASS. 

The sun shone down in balmy June, 

When Nature perfect seems to be; 
No gay apparel out of tune, 

But all in festive glee. 
The gallant came with some conceit, 

And of his person made display — 
Presumptive in each awkward feat: 

He thought his feathers were so gay. 

She, too, bewildered, made some show, 

Became elated, tried to act ; 
Too pleased because she had a beau, 

She seemed to smile each time he 
quacked. 
But soon another came to woo, 

And jerked the grass so sweet and green, 



18 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

And she at once became as true 
As to the other on the scene. 

The last quacked louder than the first, 

Became the favorite by her side — 
Ot eight she chose, it seems, the worst — 

Yet felt so proud to be his bride. 
And when their brood rilled up the nest 

Her webfoot mate looked with surprise; 
A single life to him seemed best — 

For once he thought he'd been unwise. 

The webfoot offspring were a source 

Of hinder to his fancied fame, 
And so he left upon his course, 

And thought the mother was to blame. 
There's more than one who's fooled this 
way, 

And more than one who is untrue, 
And leaves them all to roam and stray 

Among the reeds, with friends but few. 



A ROMANCE FROM THE FARM. 

When yonder sun sets in the west, 
When in repose and blissful rest 
The warbler sleeps in joy replete, 
Then may I dream that life is sweet. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 19 

Then may the dreams of boyhood's games 
Return, and with them come their joys ; 

Each one to some fond hope lays claims, 
And oft we wish that we were boys. 

The good old school, the dear old lawn, 
The fence we climbed to sing at noon, 

We miss them now since they are gone — 
The ones who made the time go soon. 

Sweet Nellie was a maiden fair. 
Her dress was neat in costly wear ; 
Her face a true and noble mould — 
Her father rich in grain and gold. 

We went to school from day to day ; 

Of clothes and style she had the best; 
For I was poor, not rich as they. 

And yet in class I led the rest. 

As time went on she went alone, 
For I must work out in the field ; 

1 raked the hay 'mong rock and stone 
To gather in the meadow's yield. 

She finished school, to college went, 
And learned her Greek and Latin lore ; 

And often on his weary hoe was bent 
The one she loved those years before. 

Four years passed by and back she came, 
A lady, graceful and refined ; 



20 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

I felt my humble lot a shame, 
She seemed the idol of my mind. 

We met there in the same old glen 
Where we had often met before ; 

She only smiled, but not as then — 
I sighed ; I knew it was no more. 



THE SILENT VOICE. 

There is a voice that speaks so mildly 

That we can hear, if list we will ; 
It comes from wood and prairie wildly, 
It never causes woe nor ill. 
It speaks in summer hours, 
From leaf and blushing flowers, 
In autumn haze 
And fading days. 

The rose in June or bud of sweetness, 

Each has the story oft to tell, 
Each lily growing, with completeness 
Repeats the secrets of the dell. 
The birds sing loudly, praising; 
The flocks enjoy the grazing ; 
And old folks hope 
And cease to mope. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 21 



MANHOOD. 

We find it easy for a person, 

Vile and low of mind, 
To find a fault in some poor sinner — 

Leaving Right behind. 

To speak of others who are sinful 

With a heart of stone ; 
In heaven yonder, we are promised, 

We must first atone. 



THE WINDS OF LIFE. 

Hear the sighing and the crying 

In the branches brown and bare ; 
Hear the moaning and the groaning 

Of the ghastly Autumn air. 
Death and sorrow seem to borrow 

Of the air a ghoulish tongue, 
Which, in shrieking and in creaking, 

Tells of hearts that once were wrung. 
What a presage in this message, 

In this tale oft told before, 
Oft entreated, oft repeated, 

With a sweetness to implore ! 



tl A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

And in childhood, in the wildwood, 

When the trees were fresh and green, 
How our greetings and our meetings 

Were in friendship sweet, serene. 
In the dawning of the morning, 

When the warblers sang their lays ; 
When the bea ning and the gleaming 

Dewdrops sparkled in the rays : 
When the flowers from the bowers 

In rich sweetness spread their scent, 
How I pondered as I wandered, 

On my journey ever bent. 

All before me, 'neath and o'er me, 

I must dare if I would win ; 
All, in summing, then is coming — 

What success can I begin ? 
Xeed I glory, or the gory 

Hundred battle fields of shame ? 
God will show me, well and slowly, 

How to gather righteous fame. 
Cannot beauty come from duty, 

And a word of praise be said 
For the armor of the farmer 

And the peaceful that are dead ? 

Hear the sweeping and the creeping 
Of the chilly Autumn blast ; 

Now the ending that was pending, 
Coming onward, comes at last. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 2 

Not the sweetness, hope's completeness, 

Still my weary heart pervades ; 
'Mid the clangor of the languor 

For the ceasing which it aids, 
There's no feeling when the pealing 

Of the church bell tolls the end ; 
Not a passion nor a fashion 

Stops the hour when we bend. 
Time eternal, love supernal, 

Blessings of a saintly rest, 
There in stillness and in chillness 

Lies the body of the blest ; 
Then the kindness which reminds us 

Of the friends who went before 
Shall be cherished and be nourished 

On that bright and blissful shore. 



A LONG TIME AGO. 

I was a child and so was she, 

Long years ago ; 
And tho but young and she so wee, 

1 loved her so. 

We played by brooks in balmy June 

Both young and gay ; 
We sang the same old childish tune, 

At work or play. 



24 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Those days, like sunshine in the soul. 

In loTe appear ; 
And now, at eve, a quiet stroll 

Has lost that cheer. 



LAYS OF NATURE. 

The air was fragrant on an early morn. 

The sky a softened gray ; 
Each gentle breeze, by angels softly borne, 

Tanned past the sweet array. 
The twittering birds, up in the trees, 

Sang soothing songs to man — 
Who would not choose to list to these — 

If mortals would that can ! 

This world, so often sad with blame and 
care, 

Now seemed a tranquil scene ; 
The roses blushing, and the lilies fair, 

Were happy and serene. 
What grace to stand, a mute admirer here; 

To be so near to God ! 
O, for the power of greater sphere 

To live beyond the sod ! 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 25 



AN EVENING WITH MY 
ALBUM. 

On a midnight, weak and weary. 

Thinking of the happy days of yore, 
I sat looking at my album 

As I oft had done before. 
As I, wondering of the morrow, 

What new friendships I should gain. 
Turning pictures of my loved ones, 

I began to feel a pain. 

There were father and my mother 

Side by side — I saw them smile ! 
How I long again to meet them — 

They who spread no rumor vile. 
Turning over to the foremost, 

As in order there they came. 
There I saw an oft seen picture, 

Who, in features, was the same. 

There I saw a deep-souled maiden. 

Still as pensive and serene ; 
On her lips some word seemed spoken ; 

In her eyes the sunlight sheen. 
How her hair, in wavy ringlets, 

4 



26 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Loosely on her shoulders fell ; 
How that high and noble forehead 
Seemed her soul foretell. 

There lives memory, there its history 

Sacred, dear, sublime. 
Tho in tears it now is written, 

No effect it bears of time. 
There was hope and there it faded ; 

There it lingered, there it died ; 
And the world of much and many 

Seems so narrow — once so wide. 



SINCE MARY HAS GONE. 

She was humble, I was poor ; 

We worked and walked thru life content; 
Each hardship well I could endure ; 

Each to the other's comfort lent. 

The summer heat, the winter cold, 

I heeded not, 'twas joy to be ! 
I had a treasure, if not of gold — 

I held a woman's love in fee. 

But now 'tis changed ; since she has gone 

I miss her face where'er I go ; 
A veil of sorrow has been drawn 

Around me here on earth below. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 27 



THE INDIAN MOUND. 

Here lie at rest, in slumbers deep, 
The knaves of darkest crimes of yore ; 

No more in ambush can they creep , 
Nor children with their dirk-knives gore. 

No more the cry and savage yell, 
Nor cruel murders stain their hands ; 

For man is free from heathen hell 
As soon as justice rules the lands. 



THE WELKIN BANNER. 

Brave Flag ! The emblem of the Free ! 
Float ever o'er this land and me ! 
Thy heroes sleep beneath the turf 
Where none shall tread the tread of serf. 

Brave Flag ! The banners of the seas ! 
Float o'er the waters in the breeze. 
How dear to me, that flag of fame, 
With Freedom as her native name I 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 



UNDER THE FLOWERS. 

In the valley, 'neath the bowers. 
In the wood. nong the no 

Where lilies and daisies grow. 

Sleeps a soldie- 

Patriotic, noble-hearted, 

now departed — 
.ere lilies and daisies grow. 
Bests a soldier in his grave. 

Birds are singing o'er him sweetly. 
On his tombstone sitting neatly — 
ss and d:, row, 

While he 



THE AS ALL FLOWER'S 
LAMENT. 

It seems so hard to sit and e 

These young and thoughtless things 
All being wc leaving me — 

And yet I wear more rings. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 2t> 

If men are sold, why can't I sell ? 

I only ask but one ; 
They linger near some so-called belle, 

And me they seem to shun. 

I'm sure I'd love — no matter whom : 

Tho crooked, lean or lame ; 
They always give me lots of room — 

I think it is a shame. 

They tip their hats to other girls, 

While me they try to pique ; 
I'm sure we wear the same priced curls, 

Yet me they call antique. 

Had I a home with children eight 

Or ten or twelve or more, 
I'd keep them strict from morn till late 

Or mop with them the floor. 

But no ! A mate I can not find. 

Away from home nor near ; 
Each man in love is always blind — 

Can neither see nor hear. 



FATE. 

Why must it be that two are born, 
One to sin and one to grace ? 



30 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Why one, a pastor, old and worn, 
Loved by all around his place ? 

The other — hated by his kin, 
Left in shame to die alone — 

Yet both began without a sin : 
One to smile and one to groan. 



TRUE WORTH. 

I've always thought, and still I think, 

An honest heart is best ; 
And more than pride and cheek of pink 

The form in plainness dressed. 

And he who flaunts in lavished wealth 

And boasts of noble birth, 
May pine, in want of glowing health, 

Which more than gold is worth. 

He may be praised, 'tis true he may, 
For wealth and kindred great ; 

But every lord shall wane some day ; 
The grave shall know his fate. 

Xor can his pilfered riches buy 

The arm by labor bold ! 
A genial smile, an honest eye, 

Is more than dingy gold. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 31 



SAD, YET DEAR. 

In breathless sleep my hope lies there 
Beneath that turf, and in that grave ; 

The voice that spoke in meeker air 
Is hushed today that heaven gave. 

I can not meet, nor can I say 
A word to one beyond our sphere ; 

We long for those of yesterday — 
Perhaps — because — they are not here. 



THE REAL IDOL. 

Go ask the man who tills the soil, 
Who plods and bends beneath his toil, 

The reason why he groans today. 
Go ask the man who delves in mines, 
The things for which he delves and pines ; 

Or ask the actress, proud and gay. 

Go ask the farmer, old and worn ; 
Or merchants keen, what they would earn ; 
Go ask why all rush on in life. 



32 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

The truth is this : wealth is the goal. 
And this desire has full control. 
'Tis this we see which causes strife. 



DUST TO DUST. 

Here lies the hope and human woe, 
In death so rigid, cold and bare, 

Of one whose fate we do not know ; 
His soul has gone — we know not where. 

Fair hope had fed ambition's flame, 
The living tire in death put out ; 

No more it burns, and mortal fame 
Has fluttered by upon its route. 

Frail hope, whose light had spread within, 
Has led this mortal on his way ; 

This form, now laid to rest therein, 
Has hoped as we — returned to clay. 



THE GOSSIP. 

In social circles oft we find 
Some human beings to honor blind ; 
Some busy tongues their venom spread, 
And spare no name, alive nor dead, 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 33 

Some speak of style, some speak of sense, 
While others prate at their expense : 
Some talk of morals, low and vile, 
And insincere they spread their guile. 

For shame to deck the measly head 
With sacred plumes, and feign be wed 
To heaven's groom while here on earth. 
Your aim is void of real worth. 



ROSE OF TRAVERSE. 

Sweet little Rose, so young and fair. 

A maiden rare to see, 
Was often in the summer air 

As happy as could be. 
She was a girl as good and true, 

As you can find today. 
But shadows came o'er skies of blue 

And Rose soon pined away. 

A saint, no doubt, were not more void 
Of sin and lust than she ; 

Yet all her future was destroyed — 
A wreck out on life's sea. 

Her tears, so bright, were shed in vain 
Remorse was not her woe ; 

5 



34 A VOICE OF THE PKAIRIE. 

She had no blot nor moral stain — 
But Fate, it seems, was so. 

Each life has springtime in its youth. 

Each thinks it comes to stay ; 
At last, too late, it learns the truth 

That beauty fades away. 
Sweet Rose is sleeping in the vale 

Where flowers grow and bloom, 
And hushed forever is her wail 

Within her narrow room. 



A VISION FROM THE 
UNKNOWN. 

On a midnight I sat thinking, 
With my books beside me there ; 

In the air a ghastly stillness 
Seemed to brood of deep despair. 

And the lamplight, shining brightly, 
Thru the window cast its beams 

Into darkness, sullen, silent, 
As a light for grewsome dreams. 

As I sat there, thinking, thinking, 
Something seemed to call aloud ; 

As I drew aside the laces, 
There a maid stood in her shroud. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 35 

On her face a lovely pallor, 

In her hand I saw a rose ; 
There in space she stood suspended, 

Garbed in locks and snow white clothes. 



WHEN THE TIME HAS 
COME. 

When you and I have seen our last — 

Have gone our journey thru — 
When every flitting day has past, 

And every friend we knew ; 
Then, in the silent rest of death, 

Our forms, confined and pale, 
Shall lie without the hopeful breath 

To banish sigh and wail. 

O, pause and think of life's last fate 

That each of us must share, 
And think of that eternal state, 

And how our forms must fare. 
The vain coquette, with eyes of blue. 

Her cheeks so rosy, sweet. 
And all her other charms to sue — 

Fate all, beneath the sod shall meet. 

The sternest hand that sways the rod 
Shall .soon decay, as those before ; 



36 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

The strongest will shall bow to God 
And do his duty, held in store. 

Ah, friend ! We soon shall go, 
Shall join the endless train ; 

We gather what we sow — 
The deeds of brawn and brain. 



THE PRAIRIE HOME. 

There stands a cottage on the prairie wide, 
Where children play around the door. 
A matron stands upon the threshhold low 
And looks upon the wavy grain around. 
The trees are few and straggling in the 

wind 
Which blows with heat up from the south ; 
The grass begins to turn to yellow-brown, 
And dries and curls beneath the sun. 
A buggy rolls along the road near by 
But halts before the door, and then the 

driver bows ; 
They meet — are friends — and he comes 

from the east 
And brings the news of home and friends. 
He is as handsome as before 
When, years ago, he was her own. 
But Maggie's face is worn and sad 
With toil and care and sorrow's pain. 




^^'AhJA^M^ 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 37 

That eve they talked of life back east, 
Of school days, wildwood, brook and mill 
Of church and church yard, and the lake — 
The dear old haunts of childhood fair. 
But not one word about the wooden gate 
That moonlight eve of long ago. 
And why ? The reason — need we say ? 
We need not echo what each has felt. 
With pain she sees her husband there, 
Whose favorite is his smoky pipe ; 
Whose only theme the field and beast : 
Ah, who could love a soul like his V 

The morrow comes, the friend departs, 
And Maggie by his buggy stands, as oft 

before : 
"Why, Harry, did we quarrel down by the 

'gate? * 
I can not speak ; I have no right as then ; 
But, Harry, both then made a grave 

mistake." 
"Yes, Maggie, but it is too late ; 
Those days will ne'er return to us again — 
We failed to see — dear friend, goodby. 

How often, in our blindness, we have hoped 

in vain ; 
Have fancied love and pleasure — found 

but grief ; 



38 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

In anger parted from each other's side, 
But not forgotten, for our memory lives 
Forever in our hearts. 

The flower that fades is sad to see, 
When treasured thru our younger years ; 
Why weep ? Ah, where is he who will not 
If tho his tears be shed in vain ? 



TWO HEARTS. 

Two hearts to throb in life together, 

Two hopes to live as one ; 
Two souls to brave each clime and weather, 

To love as hearts have done. 
From youth to age, in life's long living, 

In fancy's lovely scene, 
A tender love each other giving 

Thru life — a hope serene. 



ON THE BANKS OF THE 
MISSOURI. 

A stranger stands on the banks of the 
Missouri 
And hears the wind a whisper breathe ; 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 39 

He thinks of home, his wife and child ; — 

A picture of a lilied wreath 
Comes as he thinks of elm leaves wild 
On the Hudson far away. 

This stranger weeps on the banks of the 
Missouri ; 
He dreams of mill and winding glen — 
He sees his mother kind and true 
And longs as he awakes again, 
To live his boyhood days anew 
On the Hudson far awav. 



IN THE MOONLIGHT ON 
BIG STONE LAKE. 

There are fond recollections of the past 

That come to us from days gone by ; 
And memory speaks in whispers soft and 
low 

Of evenings 'neath the starry sky. 
We oft remember when the dreamy waves 

Swept by the boat wherein we sang, 
And how the shady bowers echoed back 

The song so sweet and how it rang ; 
And as the morn in splendor rose above 

The hills that overawe the lake, 



40 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

O, how it shone those evenings bright and 
clear 

It seemed to shine for her sweet sake. 
I hear the selfsame whisper of the waves, 

They seem as soft, as sweet and low, 
And still it seems as tho beside me, here, 

That maiden sings as long ago. 

Where'er I roam, it matters little where, 

In cities where the stir is great, 
Or in the vale 'mong roses and the bees 

Where warbling birds are heard till late ; 
Yet in my heart I long for old Big Stone 

Where Indians roamed in days of yore, 
Where brooklets murmur 'neath the 
rustling leaves 

The legend strange forevermore. 
And when I think of those untrue and 
false, 

Her eyes like dew beam twice as bright ; 
An honest girl is more than millions worth 

Who do not hold a given plight. 
It seems I see her dark brown curls hang 
loose, 

The ring she wore still sparkles fair ; 
The old guitar she played, I dream I hear 

And long to join the dulcive air. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 41 



THE MARK OF A COMMAND. 

A well known composer and author sat 
one evening by the fire, as it crackled and 
burned in a tavern, in a small town located 
out west ; that he should be found so far from 
any large city with its attractions might be 
wondered at, were it not for the fact that his 
train had been blockaded by the snowfall, 
which had been unusually great at this place. 

As he preferred the tavern to staying in 
the passenger car, he lodged here. 

I was, too, on that train, and likewise 
availed myself of the opportunity of securing 
a night's rest. This was one of the towns I 
make in handling a line of clothing for a big 
establishment in Chicago, and after making 
my report and fixing my samples I came down 
to listen to the illustrious man, whom I imag- 
ined was one of the few truly happy on earth? 
and I thought I would like to have Jennie, 
my wife, listen to him ; she is so much inter- 
ested in literature. 

The office contained but the author, the 
landlord and myself ; the others who came up 
with us having gone to another hotel. 

The wind howled piteously and the fire 
burned brightly as the man with deep, impres- 






42 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

sive eyes began as he drew closer to the fire : 

"Years ago, well I remember, I was then 
unknown to the world, having taught in a 
village school for two years. I remember 
when the new teacher came walking up the 
street with my former assistant ; we were 
three in number and were going to do our 
best for the town in this prospective year. 

Time wore on and the new teacher gained 
in popularity, and I appreciated that, for one 
reason or another. I had begun to seek op- 
portunities to speak to her. She reciprocated, 
and I soon learned of her kind, sweet and 
gentle ways ; her respect for her father and 
of her willingness to obey. 

Well, no one knew me as any one but the 
"Professor," and altho Mary liked my verses, 
and was moved to tears by their pathos, her 
father, who was a sturdy old farmer, declared 
he was surprised at finding "the Perfesser 
writin' such foolish stuff," and remarked that 
I must be "a little bit off." But when he 
heard that Mary thought otherwise, and that 
she no longer smiled on the little, spry Metho- 
dist preacher, the old farmer's wrath knew 
no bounds. He met me after four in the aft- 
ernoon for an interview, in which I told him 
to mind his own affairs ; and he told after* 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 43 

wards that although I wrote "stuff," I didn't 
stand "tampering with." 

My impression on him was not, however, 
very satisfactory, for he insisted on Mary 
wedding the keen little pastor, and as I moved 
to a higher salaried position I heard nothing 
of Mary or her husband for whom I had no 
respect. 

Well, often as the last beauteous rays of 
sunset would linger, I would think of Mary 
and a twinge of envy would come to me as 
I thought of her graceful form walking down 
the pathway of Life with that slender theo- 
logian. 

We, authors, never were known for our 
propensity for belief, nor yet, for our sanct- 
ity, so of course my apathy for preachers in- 
creased somewhat. 

On one of my lecturing tours I found my- 
self in a town of about fifteen hundred or so, 
and learned that Mary was the minister's 
wife at the place. And sure enough as my 
lecture hour was about to begin, in filed 
Mary. O, what a change! old and haggard in 
her face and six children of all sizes and 
sexes, each bearing the features of their father. 
I delivered my lecture with unusual force 
and I noticed Mary sat with her face covered. 



44 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

After I was thru with my lecture I went 
down and shook hands with her and when I 
asked how she was getting along she quoted 
Whittier: 

"Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes : 
And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away!" 
She had obeyed her father's wish and had 
ruined her life ; as once before, we wept to- 
gether. God pity Mary and pity every one 
who yields to others, only to live in misery." 

Here the great man stopped and as he 
closed his chamber-door, we knew that 
sorrows follow the great. 

I peered thru the window, the storm was 
still raging in the dark, and the lamp still 
cast its light about the room. I wrote a 
long letter to Jennie and soon after received 
answer to the effect that I must not get lone- 
some nor melancholv. 



AMONG THE GRAVES. 

Last night as I sat by my window and 
gazed at the twinkling stars out in the icy sky, 
and felt the silence in my library, my thoughts 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 45 

reverted to days gone by. An incident recur- 
red to me of which I will tell you. 

The day in question was one of rare 
calmness and it seemed to be one which 
should be well remembered. Mary Clarke 
lived a distance from town, in a fine house on 
a farm, and to her home we were invited to 
spend the afternoon. Three of us walked 
out there, Jessie, Irene and I. Jessie was a 
fine declaimer, and Irene a trained vocalist, 
and so we passed the afternoon and evening 
very pleasantly with various numbers. But 
Mr. Beversley, an attorney without a case, 
was there, trying to display his assumed 
sagacity, and trying to be attentive to Mary. 
We at last took leave and started for town, 
and as the shortest distance between two 
points is a straight line, I proposed to go 
directly for town. But the attorney had some 
difficulty in pronouncing the last word to 
Mary, so we left him to come alone. The 
way we took led thru the cemetery, and as it 
was becoming darker it became a rather grew- 
some way. In the center, running through it, 
was a ravine, and when we reached it a 
mournful cry was heard. "Woo-oo-oo," came 
the ghastly appeal. "Woo-oo!" 

Irene whispered hoarsely, "What is that 
cry?" and drew nearer. "Let's get out of 



46 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

here," whispered Jessie. "No, we will go up 
and find out what is up there," I suggested, 
and up we went. "Wo-oo-oo-oo!" This time 
the cry was so inhuman, and as I saw the 
tombstones in the gloomy light a shudder 
went over me. "Woo-oo-oo! oh, oh, woo-oo!" 
The girls pressed close to me but uttered not 
a word. "Woo-oo!" It came from among 
the tombstones, and as we drew nearer it grew 
more and more plaintive. We kept on and I 
fancied I could see skeletons whose bleak 
jaws were clattering repioof to the intruders. 
Some pale monument would take a human 
form and point its invective finger at me 
while from its eye-sockets came fearful* 
ghoulish glances. Soon, howevery, the mys- 
tery cleared away, and there on a newly dug 
grave lay a dog, mourning his dead master. 
What a praise for the dead one below to have 
the affection of that humble, sorrowing heart! 
Irene burst into tears and soon we were all 
wiping away tears, and I know I felt such an 
emotion creep over me as is hard to describe. 
We left after futile efforts to persuade the 
animal to follow us. 

Next day we heard the attorney telling of 
how he had heard a strange sound the even- 
ing before, but did not have time to investi- 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 47 

gate. He forgot to tell that he run all the 
way home as fast as he could as soon as he 
heard that piteous "Woo-oo!" 



THE HAUNTED MANSION. 

It was in the month of October ; the 
leaves had fallen ; the flowers had long since 
faded away ; the sky was hazy and the sun 
set among golden beams ; the windows seemed 
to be on fire. 

The evening was chilly and as we drew 
near the fire we could see in the General's 
face evidence that he would relate something 
to us and sure enough he began: "I was 
thinking of a time, years ago ; it was after a 
bloody battle had been fought. I remember 
how I came across the fields with several 
members of my staff ; we came up to a large 
farm-house where we intended to make our 
quarters over night, as it was getting late. 
The farmer was very civil— they are all civil 
when they have to! We sat down to a good 
meal and 1 made my orders, wrote two dis- 
patches and, let me see, and, sent a messenger 
after some articles 1 had in the van. 

The old farmer began telling us stories 
after supper as the rest went out to milk the 



48 A VOICE OF THE PKAIRIE. 

cows. He felt honored at having a Colonel 
at his place he said, but would wager I 
hadn't ; sand enough' to take him up on a bet. 
iXow it has always gone against the grain 
with me to have anyone propose a thing I 
dare not undertake, so 1 asked him to explain. 
He told that around the bend of the road was 
an old stone house or mansion and that it 
was haunted. I took his wager and he, carry- 
ing a lantern, we walked up the road. My 
officers insisted on going along and seeing 
the fun. 

As we passed by the tall elm trees grow- 
ing by the way, the old farmer told us that six- 
teen or seventeen years previous to our walk- 
ing up the road, an old man had been killed 
by some robbers who once terrorized the 
country surrounding. He also informed us 
that no one who had sought lodging in the 
old mansion since the murder of the owner 
had ever been heard of. This, of course, was 
interesting to me. 

When we at last reached the old house, 
the farmer pried open the massive door and 
we were in a high and long room ; at the 
farther end was a door, and brushing some 
cobwebs aside, we soon gained an entrance 
to another room ; here were pictures hanging 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 49 

on the walls, dusty and neglected ; in one 
corner was an old fashioned sofa and here we 
prepared to make my bed. 

The farmer left us with a lamp we had 
taken along with us. As he walked back we 
could see his lantern dimly thru the dirty- 
looking windows. The wind howled piteousiy 
and the moon shone only at intervals, heavy 
clouds obscuring it. 

There were two with me, brave boys and 
tho my aides, we always, when away from 
immediate duty, called each other by the first 
name. 

There was room on the sofa for but two 
and as we needed rest, not knowing what the 
morrow might bring, I advised them to go 
down to the farm house and to come up if 
news from the ranks demanded me. 

The boys left, for tho there was some ro- 
mance in stopping, yet laying on the cold 
door soon made the matter rather prosaic, 

They had gone but a short time when j 
left for dreamland and was just dreaming of 
little Nellie, our youngest at home, when I 
awoke. O, how I loaged for home ! But 
my longing was of short duration when I 
heard coming down the stairway iteps un- 



50 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

mistakably that of some old man. 

I thought of my situation and made 
ready for my neighbor, when a gust of wind 
blowing thru the window blew out my lamp 
and only the faint glimmer of the moon lit 
up the room. 

The door opened and into the room 
stepped a gray bearded man armed with a 
long, glittering knife. He made straight for 
the sofa. 

"Halt !" I cried, "or down comes your 
house that you live in !" He drew up haugh- 
tily and asked : "Who is master here?" "I 
can't help that, but if you come any closer I'll 
show you who is corpse here, 5 ' I returned 
holding a thirty-eight in my hand ready for 
service. 

He raised his knife high in the air ! ... . 
and just then I felt a soft white hand placed 
on my shoulder. It was Mamie's, and when 
she told her brother to go to bed I realized I 
had dreamed a fanciful dream, and I noticed 
that our old friend, the general, had [gone to 
bed before and that the story he was to tell 
he had postponed for a time when he felt like 
telling "war yarns." 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 51 



THE LAST OF A CENTURY. 

The age is done, its life an evolution; 

Humanity has struggled, worn off fetters; 

Yet, in face of this, made new ones. 

Thought is free, hope is glowing, 

Even the pessimist hopes! 

Society has faults, has evils, 

But not as many ; 

Potentates have power, then lie 

In their gore— no man is good 

Enough to rule— a tyrant ; 

Riches accumulate on earth, 

But not in heaven ; 

Titles are given to favorites 

But names stop at the grave ; 

Religion must not compel 

The fabricated form, 

Or regulate a prayer — 

But man shall evolve, 

Be good, be true, be noble 

Because 'tis good to do good; 

And ages to come shall say : 

"Tou will end well as you started right." 



52 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 



THE OCEAN OF TIME. 

Today has closed and gone forever, 

The ocean, Time, rolls on; 
The years that we have lived are billows 

That to the shore have gone. 
Our friends, our early friends, have left us, 

And strangers take their place; 
We leave and generations follow 

Forever in this race. 

The breakers near the port of Heaven, 

Shall tell us of a day 
Where waves shall never keep us wondering: 

How long shall be our stay. 
This foamy main where lives are tossing, 

Has on each side a shore; — 
From one we came, to one we wander 

Where we ne'er were before. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 53 



AWAY ON A SUNBEAM. 

Our Marie was everybody's sweetheart, 

A child so tender and true — 
Ringlets, wavy and rich in their color, 

And eyes that were heavenly blue; 
One day as the prairie was stormy, 

Our sweetheart so patient, took ill 
Beyond human power to save her, 

It seemed 'twas Heaven's own will. 
In memory I see Grandma still reading 

From Marie's little book as the snow fell, 
She did as the child had requested 

And it pleased the patient so well. 

We stood round the dear, little angel, 

Just at the close of that day, 
The sunset gilded the window 

With its golden ray; 
It seemed that the sweet bells of Heaven 

Were ringing away in the air, . 
And calling home to them a spirit 

Tn the twilight so fair. 
My heart, it was sad and was bitter, 

anguish, a fierce burning flame, 
To f bink of that suffering darling 

T 1 of Death in its clutches would claim. 



54 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Her sweet face, it shone in its splendor, 

Its expression by angels bestowed, 
A breath and it all was past and was over, 

And gone was her pain and her load. 
Heaven had then one more angel 

And Earth here below had one less, 
She sleeps in her bed on the hillside, 

Robed in her snowwhite laces and dress. 
O, I dream of the flakes that came falling 

That icy-cold midwinter night 
That spread over her its crystalline cover, 

While above it the stars twinkled bright. 



HIS PEDIGREE. 

People are cautious about what they do not 
have; people take an interest in health when 
they are about to turn over the keys to their 
successors, and I know a fellow who was bald- 
headed morally; he was always busy talking 
about what he did not have as tho he had it. 
His neighbors looked over his pedigree and 
found where he had held down a position for 
five years; they found that people took such 
interest in his safety that a guard and gun 
were detailed to watch over him while he 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 55 

slept (I mean the man with the pedigree) and 
a second term was spoken of as an endorse- 
ment of the first. This young man became the 
appendix to the society of our good old fash- 
ioned town. He was a genuine "chappie' and 
sang the latest coon-songs, and our innocent 
and blushing maidens whose lips had never 
been pressed by the caress of betrayal, began 
to have a nasty, gaunt, feeling around the 
vena cava eater-corner from the aorta. 

Along about the holidays, the good folks 
had a revival in the church and the chappie 
led the fad of joining the flock, not as they did 
when it was permissible for girls to be called 
Alary instead of Mayme; when Alice did not 
lace her name up to Alys and her father had 
not yet assumed the "swell" name of Daddi- 
cus nor Pappica. The chappie knelt down with 
a sanctified look; his spirits he had on the in- 
side of his coat-pocket — had the parson seen 
it, it would have contained an eye-opener for 
him also. 

Now it so happened that a certain black- 
smith, a good workman and a kind-hearted 
father, Mr. Christensen by name, had a daugh- 
ter whose name was once Lovisa Christensen 
but who now crimped and painted under the 
nom de plume, Louise Chrysteen, altho she 



56 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

was but eighteen. The chappie met her and a 
take-off followed. Mamma thot all the time 
he was not altogether proper for Lovisa, but 
Louise Chrysteen, graduate of the village high 
school and neglecter of supper, breakfast and 
dinner dishes, thot he was entirely superbly 
magnificent. Well, on every public occasion 
the two were seen together, and on several 
private ones for that matter. 

One day Lovisa confided to mamma that 
the two were "engaged" and that they wished 
to be married. Papa wore a serious look as 
he thot it would be hard for him to support 
another son, and to ask the dear "chappie" to 
work in the shop would be distinctly utterly 
utter. But his worry was soon dismissed for 
about eight o'clock that evening a "chum" of 
Louise Chrysteen came and in badly conceal- 
ed triumph told her that a sheriff had taken 
him on a trip on the six o'clock train. "Taken 
whom?" cried Louise. "Why your own true 
love, he was taken away on a charge of for- 
gery of which he had been duly convicted. 
Fifteen years await the escaped convict. I thot 
I would come over to tell you so you would 
not be shocked when others told you," re- 
plied her friend. 

Next Sunday Louise Chrysteen signed her 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 57 

name Lovisa Christensen in the Sunday-school 
book. The dishes are washed, the house kept 
neat, and mamma has an easy time of it. If 
any intelligent young man, who can verify his 
pedigree comes along, who is reasonably good- 
looking, he will find a blue-eyed girl in our 
town who is loved by every one around her, 
and who would make a faithful wife even tho 
she is not as innocent as when she first wrote 
Louise Chrysteen. 



THE DISEASE. 

I have never found common sense judgment 
to fail, and so try it as some apply cure-alls. 
My friend, William, has great faith in doctors 
and stomach bitters. He once rubbed the raf- 
ters of his lungs with some eye-water I had, 
and it proved an eye-opener to him. He was 
always a student of medicinal almanacs and a 
weekly contributor to the funds of the patent 
medicine man. He believed he was sick and 
so he was, but his malady was "doctoring." I 
remember one fine day in June, William came 
down with the idea of pulmonary indigestion 
or something like that as he called it. In 



58 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

other words rare pure atmosphere did not 
agree with him, he could not, he said, assimi- 
late it properly, and so the Doctor called. 
William stuck out his tongue at the Pill-sage. 
It cost him $10, but he did it — he might have 
known it would. I thot all the time that it 
was a breach of etiquette — financial etiquette 

I believe in doctors, I think that they are 
fine things to have around in case of a coro- 
ner's inquest or during a mother-in-law's ill- 
ness, it relieves the family so, both financially 
and socially. 

Taking medicine implies certain conditions; 
first, you must take your medicine, then you 
must wait to see how an unsuspecting stom- 
ach feels about it. Then as it simmers and 
boils, you can amuse yourself by calculating 
the doctor's bill or listen to the wise remarks 
of some old nanny who can give you a dozen 
remedies, each of which is worse than the 
trouble you are trying to cure. 

I believe pure air, several cubic feet of it, 
will cure more troubles than all the lung oint- 
ments I ever saw. I believe bread, milk, po- 
tato, and beefsteak, are better to build up 
worn-out tissue than all the pills, sarsaparillas, 
salves, and electric belts I ever saw, heard, or 
had the nightmare over. I like my food in the 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 59 

good old fashioned way and do not care to 
take it in the form of tonics or capsules. 

However, medical science has made great 
strides towards perfection; new diseases with 
serious and difficult names have sprung up. 
You can have an arm or leg taken off now 
without pain; all you have to do it to smell of 
a handkerchief, recline, and take a much need- 
ed nap, while the surgeon prunes off what is 
not absolutely necessary for you to live in. I 
have seen several human abbreviations walk- 
ing around and I have felt a feeling within me 
that was strongly in contrast to what a fellow 
feels when he sees a fellow other than himself, 
glide variously upon a banana-peeling. 

Now, doctors and mothers-in-law are neces- 
sary ingredients to trouble; if you are sick you 
need the doctor; if you are married you have 
the mother-in-law. If a man takes precaution 
(in time) he. can avoid them. I have heard of 
men taking after the doctor, of children taking 
after their parents and so on, but did you ever 
see a fellow take after his mother-in-law? I 
dare say that was more spirited. 

We know what we have, but we cannot al- 
ways tell what we will not get. If we eat three 
good, wholesome meals, sleep eight hours 
twenty minutes per day, we are apt to do well 



60 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

and live well. Of course I do not have a 
grudge against the doctors nor hospitals, nor 
do I advocate children being taught the scien- 
ces in the cradle as a nullifier of pedagogues. 
I simply remark that I do not care to have 
them overworked. 

Returning to the subject of tongues, I think 
it inelegant for an antique, old and vociferous 
maiden to protrude her unruly member to an 
unwarranted distance the minute a young doc- 
tor comes to see her — ah, if that tongue could 
repeat what it had voiced, all in one word, 
would it not be a jaw-breaker! If tongues 
like ox-horns had rings to show their age 
would not some be ringers! Ring out the old, 
ring in the new! Fingers are not like horns 
in that respect altho some are skinny to a 
marked degree. 

It is remarkable what surprlus flesh some 
have — why it is so I cannot see. I, for my 
part, cannot see why one person should be 
entitled to so much space and others so very 
little. Do you comprehend why people who 
sit down much, flatten out so much? And yet 
one can see a reason why skinny folks are apt 
to run around and stir up strange sensations; 
they have a facility for perambulation and as 
they are not weighty in any one place, they 




Mt. Rainier. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 61 

appear often. Cotton blows by the shifts of 
wind. But, in closing, I wish to be understood 
as repeating, we cannot help what we are. I 
might add that it is pretty hard to be censured 
for what we are not. 



THE MUSIC TEACHER. 

I have noticed that some bashful people are 
not always timid, timidity is very harmful in 
asking for credit or in courtship. 

Not long ago I was thrown into the pres- 
ence of a personage; it is dangerous to be 
thrown because it affects a fellow's nerves, 
fall where he may, especially if he falls in 
with a music-teacher. But it is more serious 
to fall out — a falling out is more serious than 
a falling in. 

She sat down to the piano and began swing- 
ing to and fro, until she began dreaming a pair 
of nightmares; occasionally you could hear 
the clater of hoofs as the colts romped around, 
then a motherly whinny on the bass brot them 
back. 

Then she began playing a piece from Eu- 
rope; it seemed like an immigrant, so unusual, 



62 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

and it made me feel creepers up my scapulae, 
but I felt I must show great delight and a 
critical look on my face in order to maintain 
my musical reputation as I had noticed others 
do in the same predicament. 

She then played a piece that made me think 
of an October rain and sleet, mud and unre- 
turned umbrellas. 

Then she came to the first crossing where 
she blew off considerable steam and jerked 
the bell once or twice; after regaining control" 
of her hands and wearing them on their cus- 
tomary sides she played an Irish melody until 
everything turned green; when I came to, I 
noticed I had come to her arms. I was armed 
to the teeth — I had to face the powder — O 
dear! By the way, those were her very words. 

O. to be as grand as she! But of course 
I wouldn't want to be as slender nor would 
I wish to be romping around in skirts with 
such a stir and bustle these cold days! My 
own pantaloons suit me better. 

What was said I cannot just tell, besides it 
would lack interest to the public as most of 
the remarks were personal. 

She was a great musician, she played a 
piece in four flats from basement to way up in 
G; she played superbly on the piano, the only 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 63 

playing I do superbly, is when I hold a royal 
flush. 

I shall never forget her as she waved me 
goodbye as I ran home in the rain. 



McROBES. 

The editor wore a grim look on his face 
when the marshal nailed a quarantine notice 
on the door where, in the rear of the building, 
two dressmakers were working. 

He ran over to the drugstore for a fumigat- 
ing remedy which he applied internally, as 
well as externally. He assumed a familiar air, 
an air he always assumed when he came from 
the drugstore. After fumigating the door 
which led into the dressmaking apartment, he 
read an article on smallpox, then arose to dis- 
infect the devil. The poor helpless devil threw 
up her hands and swallowed a big lump in her 
throat, then fainted trustingly into his arms. 
A fearful odor arose from a bottle with a word 
on it that was hard to pronounce. The errand 
boy went on an errand he had postponed for 
three days and forty-three minutes. The old 
cat arched his back, gave a terrific sneeze and 



64 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

followed a copy which blew out thru the win- 
dow. A hen in the yard seized an audacious 
microbe which impudently crawled up her 
back, and classified him with other eatbles. 

William was locked up in the pest house for 
indiscriminately wearing a pimple on his nose. 
A general quarantine was talked of, but the 
business men thot it unhealthful for their fall 
trade. The restaurant was quarantined, where- 
upon hungry citizens were running around for 
something to eat or somewhere to board — 
some boarded a train. Nothing but has its 
good sides; citizens were looking their best in 
new shirts and trousers after a fresh bath. 
All was tolerable until when the saloon was 
locked up; then a wail such as all Israel never 
heard, came up from the populace. The town 
went dry where one hundred majority had 
voted license! The Prohibitionists belonged 
to a party without an issue! As a result they 
put on mourning. The others were in mourn- 
ing, but they did not put it on — it was real; 
modesty forbade them wearing crepe. 

I still feel concerned when I feel one of 
those microbes leaping from vertebra to ver- 
tebra but of course at my age a person is not 
supposed to feel concerned at what occurs on 
his back. Before laying my pen down I wish 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 65 

to add that there are to be two new openings 
this week in our town — both in good condition: 
a church and a saloon. Do not miss these 
openings and may the spirit within, do much 
good. May no one go home without being 
filled to the brim; let us be full of it and may 
our faces shine in joy and peace. 



WHEN DAD WUZ OUT. 

My sister got to sort o' sparkin' 

And a dude with watch and chain 
Used to sit and whisper awful sweetly 

And we young ones could not remain; 
There wuz a sort o' smacking 

In the parlor beyond a doubt, 
And it alius seemed to happen 

Well, when dad wuz out. 

We've kept them both here lately, 

They're married now you see; 
And they aint so awful lovin' 

As them days they used to be. 
I guess that Dad, he calculated 

The dude wuz rich about, 
But he's left on them plans and figures, 

So, now, Dad is out. 



66 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

In the muddy months of April, 

Wuz a feller came to sell 
A lot of fruit trees and he sold us 

For he talked for quite a spell; 
Well, the cash wuz then invested, 

Wuz blowed without a doubt, 
For not a tree would start to growin' 

And Dad, — well he wuz out. 

A man came here to assess us, 

Now mother's proud, and so is I; 
So we put a solid price on matters, 

Then taxes came up too high; 
Well, sometime after came a politician, 

And to our side he wuz devout, 
We told him of a combination, 

And Dad, well he wuz out. 



IN LOVE. 

The worst thing said of one's person is that 
he is himself; I have often thot it would be a 
good thing if we could see ourselves as clearly 
as we see others. 

Magnetism draws things, beauty attracts, 
therefore it is magnetic. When we stop to ob- 



a voice of thh: prairie. 67 

serve, we are struck by the number of things 
attracted by beauty. 

A friend of mine had a pretty little friend 
who attracted a big freckle-faced Irishman, 
that struck him hard; in other words, he used 
forceful arguments; my friend met a positive 
pole altho an Irishman. 

It has been said that women do not blush in 
the dark; I know very little about that, but I 
do know a person is in the dark when they do 
blush. 

It seems strange to see a wee little tug-boat 
take an old liner up to an ice-cream harbor all 
for a smile, it is a case of where you lead I 
will follow — magnetism is a great force in 
Nature, especially human nature. Attraction 
is a part of the attraction. 

Still Love is a great factor in religion and 
divorce courts. Things often end where they 
begin — love begins in courting and ends in 
court; there is a difference in judges and 
judgments. The decisions are generally the 
same — both wrong. 

Still, when a fellow looks back over the 
past years of wooing and jilting, he feels a 
queer sensation come crawling over him. And 
I might add how positive old bachelors and 
antediluvian old maids are that they never 



68 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

loved nor acted sentimentally, yet disposition 
will crop out unawares — of all fools an old 
fool is the worst. 

When a fellow sinks knee deep into love 
his wits are comparatively shallow, they come 
to the surface all in a row and thru neglect 
of proper cultivation turn green in the brill- 
iant light of disinterested comment. And when 
they are gathered in the Fall we find them 
hard to pick up; it takes a great many to make 
a bushel. 

Love is a preliminary sensation which gener- 
ally settles down in the heart and is often dif- 
ficult of cure or remedy. Still, were it not 
for this gleam of Heaven most of us would 
have found birthday presents an empty dream. 



MARGARINE'S ESSAY. 

It is always interesting to me to see the 
children do well and when they come home 
from school it always pleases me to hear 
them talk of their school work; the other even- 
ing Margarine came home and told us that 
she must write an essay for the next day. 
Now I hope you will not accuse me of naming 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 69 

that innocent child such a name as Margarine 
for, like you, I could see the absurdity of her 
going, when she grows up, with a fellow 
who would perhaps have the name of Ole. The 
government would tax such a combination. 
But, however, in this day fads are all the go, 
and so her mother named her. We have Mau- 
rine, Clorine, Norine, Catharine, Carosine and 
Vaseline and next we may expect Marine and 
Porkine, not to mention Gasoline and Cotto- 
lene. 

The next came the title of Margarine's es- 
say; her mother suggested "Domestic Sci- 
ence" while I thot "On The Garden Gate" 
would be suggestive. When Margarine's sweet 
face shown up in its expressive way, it brot 
her mother's once girlish looks back to me 
and I have associated one side of the old 
garden gate with that sweet expression and I 
dare say it clings fondly to me in my memory. 

Her mother was busy mending her jacket, 
while sitting near the table and my location 
was near the stove trying to fasten a heel on 
Margarine's shoe. Margarine was sitting at 
her little writing-desk which her father had 
given her for Christmas. She soon asked for 
ideas to put in her essay and so her mother and 
I gave her a few pointers. 



70 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

After awhile pretty little Margarine looked 
up triumphantly and kissed her mamma and 
her papa for the help each had given her and 
then she handed her manuscript to me to read. 
Now I hope you will not censure me if in my 
pride I ask you to read what Margarine had 
written; I dare say it shows the influence of 
both a father and a mother upon the child and 
that is what I have always argued. I believe 
in both parents doing their duty and not one 
only. Here is Margarine's novel story: 

"Domestic Science on the Garden Gate." 

Domestic signs treat of the necessary duties 
and actions which occur in one's life down by 
the garden gate in after years in the golden 
moonlight. The difficulties that beset women 
in mastering the situation as they assume the 
graver and nobler duties of life make me look 
longingly for the eves of long ago when the 
breeze came drifting along accompanied by 
rolling pins and flatirons. It is the duty of the 
house-wife to keep things in their places and 
to make the home agreeable for the husband. 
Then as the sun would set in its splendor and 
the bars of soap (tar soap is best) would streak 
the mellow sky and the birds would hush and 
the flowers would close their sweet eyes and 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 71 

go up stairs to sleep before it was time to, 
then Domestic Signs would be reduced to a 
state of perfection having been a territory for 
some time clamoring for admission into the 
Union. 

Great care should be taken in the rearing of 
the young on the old garden gate; too much 
precaution cannot be taken lest they fall upon 
the path and go down. So much depends upon 
the foundation as they swing out for them- 
selves. It may mean success or failure, who 
knows? Yes, I repeat it: Who knows? The 
old man in the hedgerow knows. Life has 
many trials and the garden gate is one of them. 
Baking-powder well mixed, will make your 
ideals rise and when placed in a hot oven your 
future will develop as the mould has been. The 
garden gate takes the cake every time. Life 
has many trials that leave scars and poor yeast 
has a distresing effect on the stomach. Rec- 
reation is a necessary item in life and the wash- 
board develops many causes for complaint. I 
never complained of any board until I struck 
the washboard. I remember the little babb- 
ling brook and the shady elms — in after years 
I have seen other things equally shady. A 
woman should be as well dressed as a thanks- 
giving turkey but I object to their being so 



72 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

much taxidermied as heretofore, plus one more 
idea: It seems there is often too much put on 
about them. Real truth often lies so that you 
cannot believe it, but I think we should be as 
natural as human nature will allow. Dear 
teacher, I think this it all I can say about Do- 
mestic Signs on the Garden Gate and I hope 
you will overlook misspelled words; I will 
try to do better next time. MARGARINE. 

I had to laugh at this essay but when I 
handed it to her mother, she looked up in 
amazement and said that my influence might 
be considered questionable. But we so often 
disagree that it is no wonder that on such a 
small matter we should decide differently. 
Just as she was finishing her work on the 
jacket, she stuck herself with the needle, and 
the frown on her face made me laugh. This 
called forth a rather pointed remark or more, 
concerning the essay. I slammed the door 
and went to bed and soon was dreaming of 
the garden gate when I felt her sweet lips 
against my face; she sat on the edge of the bed 
and tears were flowing down her cheeks — she 
said she was sorry she had hurt my feelings 
and that she could see, at last, how I looked 
at that essay. As she laid her wavy head near 



A VOICE OP THE PRAIRIE. 73 

mine, I told her of the happy days of long ago 
and in her fondness she admitted "On the 
Garden Gate" better than "Domestic Science" 
and we both got up and went to Margarine's 
room and kissed her. The child wondered 
what the trouble was, but we knew. 



WHEN FATHER WENT. 

On the south of the coop, the chickens wuz a 
cluckin', 
And the cattle stretched themselves and 
stood; 
The day wuz clear and drowsy-like and 
warmer, 
And the sunshine felt kind o' soft an' good. 
Them last three days wuz awful tough un's 

The wind wuz raw and mighty strong 
And the spell was so awful colder 
Then what we'd seen the winter long. 

Then the Old Man run out o' tobacco, 

He used to get sulky and cross; 
When that happened, we young uns 

Knewed who it wuz, wuz boss. 
He cussed the prairie and the gov'ment, 

And said everybody wuz bot, 



74 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

And that nuthin' was goin' way it used to, 
And no one did what they ot. 

Well, the weather cleared up so shiny, 

So he started early for the town, 
To get the papers and his smokin' 

To walk on the streets and hang aroun'; 
When time come we fed the pigs and critters, 

Tied the nags and gave 'em oats, 
Got the hay all in and twisted, 

Took out the fiddle to try the notes. 

Well, the night come on and darkness, 

Then a storm rose up and rared, 
Come on at once and raved and blustered, 

And I prayed Dad wuz spared. 
Twas an awful blizzard and I wondered 

If Dad wuz in town or comin' home; 
The air wuz filled with snow awhirling 

Like the spray of the angry foam. 

Then the frost on the windows thickened, 

And the storm wuz growin' fast; 
It piled up snow to the door knob, 

And reached the eaves at last. 
We got the shovels and cleared the window 

To give the lamp a chance to light, 
Perhaps he'd see the flickerin' glimmer 

Ef he'd git within the range of sight. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 75 

Time went on with the clock a tickin' 

Mother wuz a sittin', lookin' out 
She wuz alius one of them women 

Ahoping as long's there wuz a doubt. 
It's awful lonesome in the sodhouse, 

Sittin', waitin' burning hay, 
Mother pale, and still, and solemn, 

None of us had a word to say. 

Well, I thot how good Dad wuz alius, 

How he helped us with our things, 
And as I sit so sad and often lonely 

Back it all my memory brings; 
Well, the next day cleared up keenly, 

The prairie was glittering grand, 
Filled with rubies, pearls, and opals, 

Scattered over all the land. 

Then we found the Old Man sleeping 

Never agin to rise and speak, 
Nor to read to us on each Sunday, 

Nor to help us thru the week. 
O, his face was sweet and grander 

Than it ever wuz before, 
And I'm alius awful sorry 

That I shall see him nevermore. 

On the hill you see up yonder, 

That's the place since then he sleeps, 



76 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Away from trouble and from worry 
That's the narrow room he keeps. 

He is gone, we kin never meet him, 
And I miss his kind old face, 

But I believe he's got a claim in Heaven 
Waiting for us in that place. 



AGRICULTFEAL REMARKS. 

Things are not always what they seem; I 
am opposed to ill treatment of any kind; 
threshing innocent wheat and hammering nails, 
especially finger-nails never seemed right to 
me. Yet I am in for fair play, — I do not be- 
lieve in the way green plums deal with peo- 
ple nor have I ever thot that a green pear 
was much to bet on. 

I might add that going plumming in Jan- 
uary strikes me as plum out of season, and 
besides riding bareback in such weather is apt 
to be injurious to the spine and besides that, 
a person should not be subjected to too much 
exposure, especially the back, unless he really 
deserves a good one; I never believe in spar- 
ing the rod in that case. 

I am in love with the prairies, there are other 




S:."~cva'_:.::e ►-alls. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 77 

green things to be in love with, but I prefer 
to be in love with the broad free prairies. 

I was born, raised and dyed there; I worked 
my way up; I believe a person should work 
his own way up so that he knows the value of 
a dollar when he gets one. I worked my way 
up six feet in my stocking feet. 

As I said, I was born there; Chicago is lo- 
cated on the prairie by Lake Michigan; I make 
this reference to geography not so much for 
the information, but to show the reader that 
I have looked up the statistics on the matter. 
When I was sixteen I became deformed: I 
had a hair-lip; I became discouraged and dyed 
— things looked different to me after that. 

I was passionately fond of hunting; I hunted 
blackberries several times. Once I came near 
some ducks in a slough; I had heard mother 
tell that we must aim high in this world, so I 
blazed away. I missed the ducks but hit a cow 
on the other side; I heard the report of that 
shot in the paper next day. 

I remember a neighbor who gave a note on 
his farm; the note swallowed up the farm. 
Was that not a dickens of a note? I know of 
but one equal. When Bill got up from the 
fever, he ate a lot. This was a case of a 
farm going up and a lot down. 



78 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

Ever since my school-days, I have never for- 
gotten what my teacher told us about tattlers; 
hard work tells on a fellow; I never want any- 
thing told on me. 

Homonyms are causing much trouble of late; 
the other day I read, while on the train, an ar- 
ticle on cartoons; a fellow looked over my 
shoulder and said he could whistle one. I 
spoke up in Anglo-Saxon and called him a pre- 
varicator; he said he was whistling a tune 
in a car. I hesitate to sit down carelessly at 
present; his personality made a great impres- 
sion on me at the time. 

South Dakota is a great state; I like her 
broad free prairies; they have always been 
broad but until the good crops came they were 
not as free as possible. 

A curious class of vertebrates known as 
bachelors thrived here years ago; they are a 
specie who are perfectly destitute of wives 
and absolutely harmless. They are almost an 
extinct specie having been nearly obliterated 
from that section. The new crop growing up, 
while different in looks and habits, promises 
to yield bountifully. 

The settling of a frontier section evinces 
many peculiar and interesting phases. New 
industries spring up and trade flourishes. I 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 79 

have had in mind a project, I dare say, all 
my own. It is to start a spectacle factory for 
weak-eyed potatoes; if we could not mash 
them we could skin them to a finish. 

When first our broad prairie was settled, 
you could see schooners come in every direc- 
tion, filled to the brim with furnishings for new 
homes, such as dishes, wives, and babies. As 
you readily see, nothing but the necessities of 
life being taken along. The demand for wives 
out here was something terrific! Many a 
stockholder was forced to retire alone as the 
Eastern points were unable to fill orders. 

I wish to describe a member of that specie; 
he was a full grown bachelor; note his fea- 
tures; his habits; his haunts; his food. As to 
his features, a person would think he had been 
featured in a monkey show. His haunts were 
the field, his sodhouse, and an old maid's cabin 
by the road to town. His hair was bay on top, 
dapple-gray on the sides; his forehead was 
warped and his face was rusty in spots. He 
was a veteran of the late war; he had been shot 
two and one-half times. Once in his arm, 
once in Cuba and the last time he went to town 
he was half-shot. The old maid whom he went 
to see, was false to him in many particulars; 
she was false in her teeth, one eye, her hair 



80 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

and in one leg, besides I doubt if the good 
old fashioned way in which people had arteries 
and veins course thru their flesh applied to her 
in every place. She agreed one day to become 
his wife for which service she was to receive 
her clothes, board and children. She had a 
sweet disposition, toothache never bothered 
her and altho her smile was somewhat strange 
from an ocular standpoint, she was a woman 
after all, and that is all one can ask. God 
bless the women! My mother was a woman 
and I loved her. 

That South Dakota maiden had once been 
in love but the competitive system blighted her 
hopes; when it comes to courtship I favor the 
co-operative plan unequivocally and unquali- 
fiedly; its results are more satisfactory on both 
sides. 

On the prairies, when the roses, red and 
white, are in bloom, and the blackbirds ren- 
der their wild and merry choruses; when the 
lark, from his rostrum, renders his sweet soio 
and the flowers turn their beautiful faces to 
the vaulting sky, and when the bees hum and 
the gopher whistles, then I hear the June 
breeze whisper something I don't 'y.st feel like 
telling everybody right out loud, but two soft, 
winning eyes can see way down deep in 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 81 

my heart; if you were there you would be in 
the same fix unless you had the mumps or had 
a loquacious wife, or both. 

Well, on a sunny afternoon, these two were 
made one by Justice Lasse Karlson, who, after 
looking over the pig this poor fellow brot over 
as a marriage fee, began: "Som I is de Jos- 
tiss of Peace for de haire tonship, you kan 
stonn opp! De haire aire notting te fool med; 
de pig aire mejn en you iss von om you say 
ja. Amen." 

Two transfers in one bargain. But after all 
I like South Dakota marriages. They are 
cheap and last long; they wear long. They last 
long enough for the couple to half-kill them- 
selves to bring their children up to positions 
honorable and worthy. At least mothers take 
care of their own babies. They do not take a 
fellow down into the nursery to show him the 
latest fad in the way of sprawling humanities. 

Along about fly-time the cow becomes an 
object of interest, especially to the fellow doing 
the milking. Have you ever seen an imagina- 
tive and acrobatic cow being milked by a per- 
sistent and prosaic farmer? First he would ap- 
proach her in a most fascinatingly persuasive 
manner while she, in her feminine coyness and 
modesty, would look searchingly into his eyes 



82 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 



as if to ascertain his motives. I recollect one 
time seeing a fullblooded Jersey; she was full- 
blooded until she severed a portion of her 
spinal supplement. After that day she rose 
each morning accompanied by a marked dis- 
tinction; yet, however, I do not believe she was 
particularly happy for hers was a sad tail. 

Times were hard in South Dakota, people 
suffered many hardships in those early days; 
one winter both the Indians and the small- 
pox broke out, while a friend of mine broke in 
and after resting up for year or so he broke 
out again; he is retiring in his way now, since 
several have begun seeking his company. 

I remember the old school-house and the 
play-ground where we acquired the cultivated 
habit of spelling long and severely tenacious 
words in a way no mortal ever had an idea 
they were pronounced. 

I visited the dear old place and noticed a dif- 
ference in the method in which the pupils 
were interesting the teachers, and I might 
add the weather seemed somewhat more 
cloudy than twenty years ago. 

It seems so strange now, so many things are 
changing as the years roll by. One thing 
had a touching effect on Bill and me, and that 
was the old rattan hanging in the same old, 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 83 

familiar place. O, how that token brings back 
many a severely impressive scene; even now 
after twenty years of toil and trouble, I can 
almost feel a twinge of pain as I think of that 
beneficient rectifier. 



THE OMEN OF THE NIGHT. 

Late. the wind was low 'neath the clouds of 
woe 

The shadows were dusky and gloomy; 
And the trees were bare in the drifting air 

And the arch of the way was roomy. 
Then the flickering light, tremulous at night 

Made forms that were sullen and dreary 
And the sober scene had no star of sheen 

And the way was weird and weary. 

There were two of them there, she was intel- 
lectually fair 
Their future was fiery and glowing; 
Out across on the ice with their skates to en- 
tice 
They sped on, no evil then knowing; 
When out from the land, no shores near at 
hand, 
An anguish of pain seized his spirit 



84 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

And he felt there a woe, no other can know 
He knew not the cause, tho he felt they 
were near it. 

Then his anguish grew great nor did it abate 

For terror his bosom was filling 
He knew not the cause of this danger that 
awes 
Which his mind could not see tho 'twas 
willing. 
At last in despair, near the center out there 

He begs her to stop and cease going 
For a cause there must be which they cannot 
see 
A danger beyond their own knowing. 

They turn on their way, not a word do they 
say, 
Until the shore they are nearing; 
Now the maiden grows cold, this terror finds 
hold 
In her mind beyond any cheering. 
"What can this all mean, for nothing we've 
seen 
Has shown us a clue to our anguish; 
Is this but a dream, which so ghastly does 
seem, 
A warning that makes us both languish?" 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 85 

Around by the shore, the ice they glide o'er 

And safely reach their destination. 
Next day they came back to follow their track 

When they saw what caused their sensation; 
In the ice was a rent near by where they went; 

He had stopped on the verge of destruction. 
His anguish and pain was spent not in vain, 

But had been that night a saving obstruction. 

What caused this restraint which made their 
hearts faint, 
And sent them backward returning? 
They knew not the place where Death seemed 
to face, 
Yet the voice was fiery and burning. 
This secret is old yet never was told; 

Clear up, wise sages, the mystery! 
Here reason stands dumb, when the question 
does come, 
We know of these cases in life and in history. 



READING A BOOK. 

It is a hard thing to pose as an apostle of 
exact literature; it is a poser. After one has 
written a manuscript with the utmost care and 
then finds some sentences set up by the com- 



86 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

positor in a painful position, it is very ex- 
cruciating or some such word; I heard this 
word used in connection with some talking 
done on the top of a popular soap box yester- 
day and I thot I might throw it in here in this 
obscure part of the book where it would go 
down unwept, unseen, and unsung as I read in 
a book yesterday. 

The other day I wrote a famous piece for 
the paper and I under-scored: "Her heaving 
bosom was filled with rage as the villain still 
pursued her," and when it came out it read: 
"Her heavy bosom was filled with rags" etc. 
Now that takes out all of the pathos and I dare 
say spoils the piece. Then, again, some sore- 
headed reader comes in to tell my words are 
not to be found in the Webster Dictionary; 
I calmly reply that they have not seen all of 
his copies, and that they better do it before 
they come to me about it. Of course, I always 
hold out on my side when it comes to the 
propriety of words. I have argued, often and 
severely; I defend my words and the grammar 
involved with rare fluency; more fluency than 
anything else. But the other day my position 
had gotten down to a very severe stage of 
hopelessness. I found that in writing up an 
item about a Miss N. E. Pool, it came out 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 87 

thuswise: "The small-pox is raging around 
here and Miss Kate Brown is worse than N. 
E. Fool; we hope that the patients will recover 
so that we may no longer miss N. E. Fool." 
That makes me think of a week ago when 
wishing to speak of a rather attractive young 
lady here, I read the following in the local 
news columns: "Miss Price is suffering from 
hpxlo!6ikitis at present, but we hope to hear of 
her speedy recovery." 

A month ago I had a suffering experience. 
I was writing up a local for the millinery store 
which was just starting up and ofcourse used 
practical words to tone up with: "The new 
millinery store is being papered and fixed up 
for the Fall trade, the estimable proprietor is 
having a great bustle on her and will soon be 
ready for her display! All the latest patterns 
will be shown the ladies who come expecting 
to purchase." I have been camping out for 
some time since, and the irate milliner is still 
ferocious, for she says my local was a slander- 
ous lie as she stoutly maintains that there is 
not a bustle in her place. 

Great Scott! How could I have told? How 
am I to know? I simply wanted to help her 
out; yet, she claims that not a lady will come 



88 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

near her store. I don't blame them if they 
feel as sensitive about it as I do. 

A friend of mine has written a large and ag- 
gressive book; he calls it the City Directory; 
I do not fancy it however for it is not romantic 
enough for me. I think it could be improved 
very much along some lines. True, it has one 
advantage over my last book because it locates 
the plot more accurately, giving numbers and 
street, and also names the villain and the two 
who get married in the last chapter, but my 
friend quits before that, and advertises a brand 
of malt damnation that will make your nose 
blossom like a garden of roses and pansies and 
stretch your diaphragm beyond the wildest 
dreams of an Expansionist. 

Theer are some very personal remarks in it; 
I have never doubted his great appreciation of 
me but I think he made a breach of etiquette 
in putting into his book the exact location of 
my voluptuous residence; that was a case where 
address was in too familiar terms. Further- 
more, it was a mean thing for him to do, as I 
think cautiously of the rent due a man where I 
lodged for a year and was obliged, despite my 
forbearing qualities, to move, being continu- 
ously annoyed by an unattractive bill until I 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 89 

could stay there no longer, and had to move 
or lose my dignity. 

This book is illustrated with great letters 
on the covers and is after all, a great literary 
appendix to our masterpieces. It is a useful 
book as it is the right thickness to put on a 
chair to put the baby on so as to reach up to 
the table. I have used it frequently as a press 
for botanical purposes and as a press or weight 
for pickles it has few superiors and certainly 
no equals. But there is another use for which 
it can scarcely be surpassed and that is a place 
to select names for bald and helpless babies. 
Here is where the genius of its author sheds 
lustre on his opus. 

As I lay my pen down to scratch my back, 
I may add that it costs $4.00 C. O. D. 



BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 

The sweetness of living had faded, 
And the hope of ideals had fled, 

As at night in my home I was thinking 
Of a heart of devotion, now dead, 

And my thots were seriously bitter 
And my fancy was only despair 



90 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

For I thot that no other could ever 

Such fancies in silence upbear. 
Then I thot of the bar of division 

Between Future and fast fleeting Past, 
And the vague, mystic distance between us 

For the unmerciful die had been cast. 

Then my soul turned hopeless and bitter, 

For where on this Earth could I see 
The features of one who is sainted 

But today separated from me. 
As I sat in my fancy and dreaming 

With the load no other could take, 
The shadows grew sullen and gloomy 

No music the silence to break; 
When as of a sudden I heard them, 

The bells distant, ringing in chimes, 
Began tinkling, swinging in rapture 

And brot hither in beauty old times. 

Then my eyes were so heavy and leaden, 

Their lids I could open no more, 
Until Psyche had lifted the curtain 

And I saw there the heroes of yore; 
There I saw Cromwell and Lincoln, 

And Moses, and Jesus, and Job, 
Garfield, McKinley, and Jackson, 

The worthy of men from each globe. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 91 

There I saw that a man to enter 
Need neither be honored nor grand 

Nor solemn, nor long-faced, nor sceptic, 
Nor faithful to creeds or beliefs of the 
land. 

He simply must be manly and tender 

Honest in mind and at heart; 
A toiler for good and a defender 

For right and build up his part. 
I found that those that had shouted 

Of virtue they claimed for their own 
I could neither see, hear, nor encounter 

They were gathered in the gossiping zone. 
I found there people surprising 

To me for I never would have thot 
That they would here have been selected 

And here to this place have been brot. 

Here were sceptics who lived once nether, 

Infidels, atheists, and more 
Who once scoffed at God and Creator, 

At foot of the throne to adore; 
Here were Baptists, Catholics, and Metho- 
dists, 

Lutherans and others of various creeds, 
But they had entered not by religion, 

But by their benevolent deeds. 



92 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE. 

I noticed no Hell in. this region 

With brimstone, lava, and fire 
But a God of Reason and Justice, 

With aims nobler, better, and higher. 

But I noticed that outside the Portal 

Stood priests, ministers, and those 
Who, nether, had preached and practiced 

Diametrically opposite — but God knows. 
Some day even they shall enter the Portal 

But their wrongs and airs they must shed; 
They have talked of creeds musty, beliefless, 

And hundreds in wrong courses led. 
O, the Religion is glorious and simple! 

The ways of its people are just, 
When coffin and anthem are finished 

In God's grand home you will trust. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 93 



ROTATING ON RUBBER. 

The wagon tracks were worn down in the 
road we were following, and the sun was slid- 
ing down the sky at an appalling rate; we 
were going east and our shadows like spears 
kept ahead. Darker it grew, and when we had 
wheeled around a long hill, to the north of it, 
we saw a house with a bright light gleaming 
from two of the windows towards the road. 
We stopped to get some matches and water 
to fix our carbide lamps. By pouring water 
into the reservoir in the lamp, the carbide will, 
as you ride along, generate by the action of 
the water, the acetylene gas, which burns with 
a bright light. As I knocked, the farmer, a 
Scandinavian, came to the door; I asked him 
for a match and some water to light my lamp. 
"You inte kan light your lampa med water, I 
kan tell you. I is not so big fool som you 
town-fellers tenk I is, nossir! I skall gif you 
what you ask for, men I don't vant you to 
play no tricks, for I inte kan stand no fool- 
ing." 

T shook the lamp after filling and the farmer 
stood dumb-founded when he saw the bright 



94 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

flame burn. I thanked him and the last we 
heard him say was that he hoped they would 
plow a fire-break around the Atlantic so that 
it would not burn up before he had time to go 
home to Uddevalla to warn people not to 
throw water on a burning house as that would 
result in its burning down. 

On and on we sped until a pestilential odor 
arose from the track due to the compliments 
of a nervously constituted skunk; William 
made some pleasant remark consistent with 
the acceptance of compliments and sped on at 
a meteoric rate. Such rate is charging usury 
on Time and I have always noticed that get- 
ting anything and everything on time is not 
alway's to one's credit. 

He disappeared like a South Dakota treas- 
urer when the whole State advertised for a 
certain Taylor — apparently the coat did not fit 
and so a whole suit was ordered. When I had 
by strenuous velocity gained his close and 
intimate presence I had formed an entangling 
alliance with his wheel; he had dexterously 
turned a summersault and I had determined to 
turn a new leaf in cycling for a record. You 
will notice that there are many queer turns in 
the life we lead. 

After gathering up our wheels, our hats, and 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 95 

our strength, we resumed our rotation on rub- 
ber. William rode ahead and in a grassy place 
along the way he capsized, and as he fell a 
thousand fire-bugs flew up; all I could see 
was a liberal pair of feet in mid-air and sparks 
flying in every direction. It looked like a hot 
ride. It was. 

It is very appetizing to ride a wheel for 
miles without a bite to eat except the mos- 
quito bites on a person's back. They are per- 
sistent back-biters as I have often said before. 
I have little patience with suckers even tho 
they come from Illinois. 

Again we pushed forward and as we rode 
on we noticed no houses along the road. On 
and on, and no place to stop over night. 

At last we came up to an old hay stack; here 
we laid our wheels down and rested. I had 
rested similarly on a strawpile before. To- 
wards morning we awoke very much rested. 
Something had bitten poor William under the 
nose and also under a tall cottonwood tree. 
His lip, otherwise set aside as a reservation for 
a mustache, looked like the smackers of a 
hippopotamus. I was afraid he was pouting 
at something I had said about the fire-bugs. 
As I got it thru my head that he really was 
good-natured and desired to appear pleasant, 



96 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

my fears changed into a suspicion that he was 
coming down with labial mumps. 

There is a fond feeling that comes over a 
fellow when he thinks of his friend by his side 
as the only person who is with him, appre- 
ciating things transpiring, and to whom he can 
speak of home and homestead. I was as a rule 
proud of William for he was a fine specimen 
of manhood. But I felt that he was inordi- 
nately mouthy at present. 

It is curious how some people swell up over 
a tiny bite. 

The day was beautiful as we rode along the 
Minnesota river; the people were coming out 
of the city to be nearer the woods and water, 
and to breath the fresh, pure air and smell the 
scent of the flowers. 

Minneapolis is a great city for flour-mills 
and civil disturbances. Some of her civil dis- 
turbances are not so civil as they might be, 
but of course a growing city must keep up her 
reputation. 

We soon crossed the Rubicon and were in- 
side city limits; we have seen many limits 
since then. I might add that the city limits 
were not all the limits we saw. 

We put up at a hotel which would be in 
keeping with our social equilibrium; I have al- 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 97 

ways heard that a person should keep in good 
company; that was the reason we did not call 
on the Mayor, altho we were in need of a civil 
service plum. I had heard that he was called 
the Father of the City, and judging from some 
of his children, their mother must have been 
gadding around the neighborhood and letting 
the children take care of themselves. I had 
noticed such affairs in the land I came from. 

We could not sleep well that night for there 
seemed to be a wagon driving by every now 
and then, and besides that, there was a big 
Turk sleeping in the next room and I had con- 
siderable worry over understanding his for- 
eign method of breathing. I committed a por- 
tion of it, but failed to get the accent. 

William tried to blow out the light in our 
room, but the wick was inside a bottle. It 
must be very windy in the Twin Cities, and as 
a precaution they case their lamps. We put 
wet towels over our eyebrows and tried to rest 
our aching heads. 

We had several interviewers during the 
night, and twiched nervously during their per- 
sistent interviews. 

When the sun rose we dressed and went 
down to the eating-room where a young lady 
came up and spoke a piece without first having 



98 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

been introduced. We both smiled and bowed 
and off she went thru a door and came out 
again. She was a professional flirt for she act- 
ed in the same manner towards eighteen or 
twenty. 

After waiting about half an hour we became 
vexed and left the room with much hauteur. 
That piece of poetry cost us a dollar. We 
went up the street and got a square meal at a 
table which reached up to our chins. 

We walked around awhile to limber up and 
then rode on the street-car. My, but we saw 
many people on our trip on that car, several 
of whom we had never seen before! 

A person can study Nature, and especially 
human nature, and of its many phases woman 
nature is the most curious. I saw one come in 
with a dead bird on her head, and another had 
a blueberry bush on top of three shades of 
hair. One had been kneading bread and in her 
hurry to catch the car had forgotton to brush 
off all of the flour. But a man would be a 
crank to find fault with a woman who insists 
on doing her housework first before going out, 
so I kept still. 

It seemed queer in this city; I said "How- 
do-you-do" to everyone as they came on board 
but the people were singularly impolite and 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 99 

showed very poor bringing up, for they seem- 
ed too proud to speak to us. City people are 
too haughty to suit me. I like to see a per- 
son have common sense and not try to be 
something he cannot be. I hate the man who 
scratches his head six feet from the scalp. 

The city is a great place for streets, high- 
ways and poor water-systems. 

The day we were there they found a dog 
and six infants in a reservoir; I presume the 
mothers had taken their little darlings there 
for a morning bath and had been attracted by 
some of the many attractions wc saw and had 
forgotten their babes. The dog had prob- 
ably jumped in to rescue the sprawling hu- 
manities and died in a questionable cause. O, 
how those poor mothers must nave suffered 
when they realized their negligence! 

There is a great deal of trouble in this 
world, and there are several young mothers 
who need a sympathetic friend who could 
shoot straight enough to put a quietus to a 
great many who do not merit the exalted title: 
Man. But I have noticed some who have 
never had a great chance of being led astray, 
criticise the unfortunate; I have noticed more 
square inches of pure, unadulterated rotten- 
ness and immorality among these selfsame 

L.ofC- 



100 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

critics than the suffering ones whom they crit- 
icised. 

I do not uphold wickedness and that is why 
I censure the wickedest the most. 

Our great cities need more farmers in them; 
more honest, God-loving city* folks, and less 
money-hoarders, gamblers, thieves, civil and 
criminal. 

We do not need sermons to the church-go- 
ing people as much as we do to the slum pop- 
ulation. I believe the preacher ought to be a 
safe, moral, logical, fellow; I would place less 
stress upon his coat than the heart within; I 
would pay him every cent I promised him and 
I should insist that he give value received. 
These are my sun-burnt opinions and the}* are 
not due to any shade of a city*-awning's sin. 

We hesitated to drink water the remainder 
of the day, but we soon discovered that the 
milk they sold in the city bore very slight re- 
lation to the bovine tribe; you could not im- 
agine a bellowing calf by* the taste of it. 

Josh Billings said that the best thing he ever 
saw on milk was cream, but the best I could 
see on this milk was only* a thin film. Bill 
Nye would have nigh choked on the bill it 
cost, and Riley would have merited his name 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 101 

if he had been obliged to drink it. I think he 
has a splendid name as it is. 

William went out for a little sight-seeing; 
he went out to look for a mill which was lo- 
cated by a dam. The mill had burned down 
and when he came back he explained that the 
mill the old settlers built had disappeared. "I 
found the dam by the mill-site but I couldn't 
find the mill by a dam-site." I couldn't either. 

It seems peculiar how time defaces things; I 
met an old boy-friend. He was now a defaced 
man; his face had grown up to weeds and his 
pate was lying over, being summer-fallowed. 
He was mulching it with a strange lotion. It 
seemed he had a sore head. So many have. I 
knew a girl in early times who, now, cannot 
eat a bite of food; in fact, chewing is a lost art 
with her. "City life is strenuous and dim- 
cult," she said, and judging from her appear- 
ance I agree. I always agree with a woman 
who has no teeth, for to carry on a conversa- 
tion with bald-mouthed women goes against 
the grain, especially the grain of truth. 

Having seen our fill we started up the road 
to Stillwater, a place of rest and confinement. 
Here are some persons who are retired within 
a stone-wall and are almost as exclusive as 
New York's Four Hundred. They are almost 



102 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 



as eccentric in their style of dress and hair-cut. 
They first came up to the bar, then before it, 
and now behind it. They long to be disbarred 
from being debarred. This convent of quiet 
brethren is a solemn place and things are taken 
seriously, as that is the way they took things 
before. 

Stillwater is beautifully located and some of 
her tourists stay there for long outings. Some 
of them return. We stopped there longer than 
we had anticipated. 

We went from there to St. Paul, but no- 
ticed little to suggest its name. The place is a 
fine business center and has several flourishing 
saloons. Spirits are high and as a rule we felt 
gay and frolicsome while there. It is a healthy 
place except the fatal beds they have there. 
So many die in them. They wriggle around 
so much and catch death by cold feet; a quiet 
nap can do no harm except in case of a fire; 
then it is a probable cause for a good roasting. 
It makes me hot to get roasted. 

We then went to St. Peter; I failed to see a 
reason for calling the town by that name. He 
must have been crazy, at least there are a great 
many crazy people there. We left this town 
on short notice. 

We next turned up at Mankato; this is the 



A VOICE OF THE PEAIRIE 103 

place where the Indians were given a neck-tie 
social. As for me, I never believed in hang- 
ing around. In fact, I will be hanged if they 
hang me. 

From this place we resumed our journey 
home to the Land of Sunflowers. The whirr 
of the threshing-machine greeted our ears; the 
scent of the pumpkin-pie and fried eggs came 
upon the breeze. The clacking of the guineas 
and haw-i-haw, — i-haw of our pet donkey told 
us that we were in a fine state. We were. 

Everywhere rows of grain-shocks and grain- 
stacks could be seen; autumn flowers were in 
bloom and the sky clear. Wagons filled with 
wheat were going to* town, with farmers talk- 
ing politics and market-prices from wagon to 
wagon. 

The country school-bell would ring and the 
children gather in to learn lessons which would 
enable them to rove around and see things 
from our standpoint. The envy with which 
they looked at us was appalling to say the 
least — appalling to us. 

In closing I will say that South Dakota has 
a few blizzards. 



104 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 



ME AM) HER ¥UZ SWEETHEARTS. 

Me and her wuz sweethearts 

When I wuz young; 
Many is the recollection 

To me has clung. 
Remember her voice, soft-like, 

And her purty eyes 
That gave me my only glimpses 

Of Paradise. 
I kin still remember 

As clear as the day 
I heard her sort o' whisper: 

"I love you, say." 

Had a longing for her comp'ny, 

Liked to sit and sing, 
And I knowed a hammock 

That wuz just the thing; 
Believed I wuz only foolin', 

And used her mean, 
But I knewed it different 

As could be seen. 
Fellers used to guy me 

But I didn't care 
'Caus I wuz in earnest 

For she wuz fair. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 105 

Well, she went to Wyoming, 
And I went from school, 

When I seen her next time 
She held the teacher's rule. 

Married a feller in Wisconsin, 
Used to drink up all; 

Heard she wuz unhappy- 
Heard she used to squall. 

One day he got run over 
By the train they said; 

When they found him mangled 
He wuz cold and dead. 

She came back to Dakota, 

Wuz a widow, of course, 
Hard up and busted, 

Discouraged and worse. 
We, neighbors, turned to 

Give her a sort o' lift; 
Plowed her farm and garden, 

Took turns about and shift. 
Well, she seemed so lonesome 

I thot she wuzn't to blame, 
So I took her to the justice 

And changed her name. 



106 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 



SPOOKS ABOVE. 

We roomed with a Socialist family who held 
tenacious views of more or less accuracy. They 
were industrious, honest at heart, and peculiar. 
Socialist literature was much read, and reviews 
of Republicans and Democrats were often 
made. Labor questions were discussed, espe- 
cially between a boy and a relative wood-pile. 

They were delighted in impromptu argu- 
ments and were pleasant in many ways. 

John, the Boston man, was a roomer at the 
house, and played rag-time pieces with clever- 
ness. He held patriotic views regarding the 
celebrated Bean-town. 

One evening John had a friend who came 
with him upstairs; while they were talking 
about the best method to dehorn a brass-band 
which had started up in our town, I had lain 
upon my bed when I was awakened by what I 
thot was a soft hand. Upon going into his 
room I found them white as ghosts. "Did you 
see her? Did you see that girl?" gasped John. 
"She resembled the photo of the girl you call 
Jessie." "Yes," said his friend, "she stood in 
your door-way looking into your room. She 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 107 

was beautiful as she stood there gazing at you. 
Didn't you see her?" I had not. They had 
noticed her sweet blue eyes and long, wavy 
hair, and kept on commenting on her personal 
beauty. I felt peculiar; their fear was real; 
they were verily trembling with terror. They 
described Jessie very clearly, and yet, they had 
seen only a poor photo of her which was faded 
and old, for she had gone to the Land of Shad- 
ows while youth's bloom held my admiration. 

Both of them were quiet the remainder of 
the evening and I went to bed with a feverish 
memory of bygone days. 

About midnight John stalked into my room 
crazy with terror. "I saw her in the dull 
moonlight; again her eyes were looking into 
your room. I dont' know what to think. She 
stood there and then went thru the window in 
the hall here. I could not see her open it but 
I saw her go thru it. Can you explain it?" I 
got up and talked with him concerning the 
situation. 

I happened to look out thru the window 
when I saw something of a pinkish golden 
color pass by; it seemed to be going thru the 
yard. It seemed to have alighted on the 
ground some hundred feet from where I saw 
it first. The discussion was becoming very 



108 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

real to me and I thot if there were any spirit 
that wanted to interview me I wished to meet 
her and meet her soon. John was less anxious. 

After talking and talking, we went to bed. 
I dreamed of mother and the homestead back 
in the Land of Sunflowers and I fancied I 
could hear the kiotes howl. When I awoke 
and came down for breakfast, John had one 
foot upon a chair and was explaining his ex- 
perience to the Socialists, who, in awful sus- 
pense, held their mouths at a great degree of 
angulation. 

"Well, sah, I do believe it's because of them 
combine and awful oppression of the laborin' 
classes, and I think we'll see signs worse than 
these. What d'you think?" Combines in 
Heaven! I have believed that there would be 
some trusts there but I never before had thot 
of calling them mergers. 

After having talked the subject over accord- 
ing to various interpretations another evening 
had come around and another opportunity for 
spiritual manifestations up above in our rooms. 

After supper another consultation was had 
and then we went into our respective rooms. 

Suddenly I heard a door open and the fall 
of a body. When I came into the hallway 
there lay John on the floor, dressed in his 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 109 

night cap and gown, fainted away. I ran in 
for a bowl of water to bring him to. As I 
came out I stubbed my toe on the threshold 
and all of the water was poured on John's un- 
suspecting stomach. He came to in an instant 
and told me he had seen visions. He wanted 
to know how he had got wet and where the 
water came from. I had returned the bowl 
and looked mysterious. With a shrug and a 
shiver he went to his room and dressed. We 
sat for a long time thinking of the spiritual 
disturbances and talking about the mystic phe- 
nomena. Then the chimney began to howl and 
a book fell from my book shelf; when I picked 
it up I found it to be one of James Whitcomb 
Riley's books which Jessie had given me in an 
early day. The book has some fine sentiment, 
and, what was curious, it had opened to a story 
entitled: "A Tale of a Spider." 

That set me to thinking and fancy after 
fancy passed thru my wistful brain. At last 
John went back to bed again and I sat till the 
morning dawned, reading letters written dur- 
ing the prospective days of a mustache. The 
next day we went thru the incident of the for- 
mer manifestations and when night came the 
whole household was on the alert. Along 
about ten o'clock something passed the win- 



110 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

dow again. We got up and ran down in our 
night gowns and took after the fleeing appari- 
tion, each silent as the grave. Thru ditches, 
mud holes, on and on, over the fence, and 
down the road in a silent, grim pursuit. It be- 
gan to rain in torrents; the lightning flashed 
and we were wet to the skin. But we were 
gaining on the ghost, but gaining slowly. Over 
a plowed field, down and up a ravine bent the 
enthusiastic chase. At last our gains began to 
show, and in a few moments he had lost so 
much ground that we were about to grab him, 
when to our mortification we discovered the 
ghost to be our friend, the Socialist. He had 
done what we had taken him for. He believed 
us to be the troublesome spirits and had fled 
in disma}^. He had run his race for life as 
best he could. When we came back the good 
housewife had made some hot coffee, and af- 
ter dressing we sat down talking over how it 
had come about that we had made so grave a 
mistake. 

About two o'clock I was awakened by some 
woful moaning in the chimney and in a few 
moments John came in saying that he heard 
footsteps on the roof. We listened atten- 
tively but could not hear a repetition. John 
went back into his room and all was again 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 111 

quiet. I fell asleep, but awoke hearing some 
one say that my dear old grandmother was 
dead. I got up and looked at my watch; this 
happened a quarter past three in the morning. 
My whole being was in agony lest this voice 
be a true one. When I awoke after a feverish 
slumber, breakfast was ready and again we 
discussed the situation. 

Things went on smoothly for a week or so, 
when a letter came saying my grandmother 
was feeble but riot ill. That was a relief, for 
she was the object of anxiety to me day and 
night. 

I sat one evening looking at a faded picture, 
one often seen before. But as I sat there look- 
ing at it her eyes became as the living. I said: 
"Jessie!" "What?" "Where are you living 
now?" "I am in Heaven, but it is unlike what 
you think it is. Wilhelm, do not worry over 
me; when you come we will go far beyond 
Alcyon to see your grandfather, who is there 
now. The soul needs no time to travel; it 
thinks, and it is where it thinks. I think and I 
am here. I am not of substance as you under- 
stand it. You cannot caress me now — you kiss 
me with your beautiful thots; you could smite 
me with your angry ones, were you here." 



112 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

I looked around to see where the voice came 
from, but nowhere could I locate it. 

Again it came, and this time it said: "When 
I next see you, I will take you with me; you 
must bear up bravely for your trials are to be 
great. I only know of them and not so that 
I could tell you anything in detail. I cannot 
talk in the language of emotions to you; I 
must speak in words. Farewell." 

I was alone; the room was dark; it rained 
outside. The sighing in the chimney had ceased 
and nothing but the dull patter of the cold rain 
broke the ghastly silence. Nothing could be 
heard of the voice; the lamp had gone out and 
in silence I went to bed. From troublesome 
sleep I awoke to find John in the doorway with 
lamp in hand, looking at me. "I dreamed you 
had suddenly died, but I see you have returned 
to the land of the living." I marvelled at his 
speech, but as he returned to his room I fell 
again into sleep. 

We have seen no more of that beautiful an- 
gel, and when she calls again I shall follow to 
the Land Beyond, and in that realm see what 
I cannot even think of here, nor shall eyes be 
necessary for sight. The blind shall see and 
the deaf hear. The lame shall be agile and 
the dull shall be witty, and boasters shall have 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 113 

something to boast of. The gold shall be per- 
manent on the evening wave and the breezes 
shall bear strains of devotion on their fleeting 
wings. 



ON PTJGET SOUND. 

Tell you what I like is fishin', 
Fishin' for cod an' other fish; 

Not for them there compliments, 
Them ain't what fills the dish. 

I like to take a row-boat 

When the weather haint rough, 
And skim along the surface, 

I tell you that's the stuff! 

I like to fish with comp'ny, 
And sit and talk of times 

Way back in old Dakota — 
That's what sort o' chimes. 

I like to tell of blizzards, 
And sit here in my sleeves, 

And about them spelling matches 
Where the wrong word grieves. 






114 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

'Spect some chronic critic 
Will see this piece and grin, 

But if he wuz here afishin,' 
He would think it a sin. 

When the sun is shining 
On the Olympics there, 

And the Overland whistles, 
The scenery is fair! 

O, the sighing in the pine-trees, 
In the pines the sighs should be! 

And the ripples on the surges 
Are as fine in briny glee. 

O, I like the trees and rivers, 
And the mountains and vales! 

With the flowers and the berries, 
And a climate for all ails. 

Like to hear the tree-falls, 
And the whistle of the mill; 
There is music in the breezes 
And the ripple of the rill. 

And I like the hop-picking 

And the merry crowd that goes, 

Reg'lar picnic for the women 
And a recess for your woes. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 115 

Do I like the pears and berries? 

See me eat the way I do! 
Gee! Tell me of the blizzards 

After I am done and thru! 

Give me room to yell and holler! 

This is Eden of the Heart! 
Rather have it rain than blizzard, 

And the drought to start! 

Here's the places for spinsters, 

Here they can get their man. 
If they can't get a rattlin' feller, 

They never, never can. 

I aint high-toned in talkin' 

But I kin pay my way; 
It seems that them what's busted 

Hadn't ort to have much to say. 

In the summer and the autumn; 

In the mellow moonlight hours; 
When the leaves are bright and silvery, 

I like to walk among the flowers. 

And I like to talk of bygones, 

And forget the wicked things 
That people said in anger, 

For a nobler sentiment sings. 



116 A VOICE OF THE PRAIPwIE 

I'd rather think of my mother, 
And her sweet and simple life, 

Than be thinking of the troubles 
That harass in our strife. 



m FASHION'S REALM. 

It appears there are different kinds of corn; 
some grow on ears, others on feet. There are 
farmers who have read ''Farm. Stock and 
Home'' and believe in diversified farming; 
they raise both. Gophers are very injurious to 
corn, hence several kinds of corn-salve have 
been made and used. The gopher that eats 
corn-salved kernels usually dies of stomach ex- 
haustion. 

In fashionable circles the other kind of corn 
thrives splendidly. People seem to treasure 
them highly, at least they feel very sensitive 
about them and act as tho annoyed and offend- 
ed when a person thru circumstance comes too 
near to them. I dislike sensitive penurious- 
ness. 

The other Sunday I was walking on the 
boulevard when it occurred to me that the 
world is getting to be over-crowded of late 






A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 117 

years. My admiration for the fairer sex is 
great, altho I have seen some very unfair ones 
among them. But one thing cannot be denied 
and that is that they will sacrifice anything and 
everything for the sake of others. I know of 
one who sacrificed a home, a husband, and her 
three red-headed children to please a Chicago 
salesman. After having pleased him, she gen- 
erously returned to her home, and is waiting 
to help some other if need be. I noticed on 
the boulevard a young girl who had laced her- 
self up to an abbreviated contraction in order 
to give other people more room. The brave 
little thing bore up calmly under the terrible 
strain, and acted so bewitchingly that I would 
have taken her to my arms in the enthusiasm 
that a native land receives her Hobson, were 
it not that I might seem too forward in my 
ways. 

Another lady came along whom I admired 
for the example she set. She was an enthusi- 
ast of nature study. She set an example for 
others to follow. She wore as a badge of her 
order, a green-house on her head; green peas 
and radishes were her emblems. They were 
very apt and suggestive to me. I believe in 
people showing what they are. These em- 
blems had another use; they were cooling and 



118 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

refreshing to the owner and the colors har- 
monized beautifully. 

It did not take me long to discover that the 
day was one when all trades and fraternities 
were out on parade. 

Along came a woman with a dress made 
from a crazy-quilt pattern. It was very at- 
tractive; I noticed many were attracted by it. 
She had a big blue patch on her back, and 
several red and green ones on her chest; 
pieces from a flour sack were sewed on the 
wrists. In some places, to bring out the back- 
ground more clearly, and to give effect to the 
vanishing point, mosquito netting had been 
used. It added coolness and comfort to her 
dress. It seemed even shady to me. 

Soon a large woman came along with a 
poodle-dog, and a small man carrying a cat. 
That woman was a good woman. Evidence 
showed it. Her little pets seemed delightfully 
attentive. Anyone could see at a glance what 
fraternity she represented. It was the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
Hers is a noble cause! I have seen horses 
with sore shoulders and without fly-nets in 
fly-time and their drivers beastly drunk. I 
must apologize here for the adjective: 
'beastly/ as I have never seen a beast drunk, 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 119 

altho having seen several human wretches in 
that condition. I have seen lazy men drive 
over-burdened horses in a way that the build- 
ing of a new oven in Purgatory has become an 
absolute necessity. I have seen jackasses in 
the traces and others holding the reins. It 
seems a disgrace the way our dumb friends are 
treated. 

By and bye, a family came walking along. 
They aroused my curiosity immediately. There 
were six boys and five girls, a father, and a 
mother. The boys were dressed symmetric- 
ally; their clothes looked the same fore and 
aft. You would have to see them move in or- 
der to detect which way they were going to 
go when they looked sideways. The girls had 
an unripe expression about them, and proper 
cultivation would have modified their looks 
considerably. 

Patterns and taste had been left out of their 
lives, and the result was disgusting, not ludic- 
rous, to contemplate. I have a feeling of aver- 
sion for meaty looking individuals. I like the 
gleam of intelligence which emanates from the 
cultured features of the intelligent person. 

After them came a brassy looking family; 
they appeared as tho they owned the whole 
world. They probably did, for the world 



120 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

they moved in must have been very narrow, 
judging from the narrowness of their bear- 
ing. They tried to represent the tinners and 
brazers but could not. They had the brass but 
lacked the tin. I have seen others in the same 
predicament. 

Another came along with a crepe-flag at 
half-mast to show that his mother-in-law had 
made up with him and gone to her reward. I 
had some time in placing him, but finally made 
up my mind that he represented an advertis- 
ing bureau. 

Then a fellow with a sober look on his face 
came along. He looked meek and pious. He 
came up and asked me if my soul was all 
right. I felt in my pockets to see if I had lost 
anything and then told him I must have un- 
derstood him to say something else. He said 
that I should mend my ways. Are you a tailor? 
I asked. He mumbled about sinners and 
brimstone, and went away having left me with 
all his meekness, and gone away without it. I 
placed him with the missionaries to China — he 
was out of place to a certain extent. 

I have views of my own, and do not need 
the assistance of such sycophants as he, to in- 
quire about a matter that is none of his busi- 
ness. I had one of those pious leeches come 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 121 

and ask how my soul was, and then get down 
and pray a long irrelevant harangue, after 
which he got up and asked me for five dol- 
lars. I gave him the V and as soon as he had 
pocketed it he flew for the door. If a man 
wants aid and needs it, I feel like giving 
him help and saying nothing about it, but 
this begging and alms-giving of idle, sleek- 
haired jugglers with religion find little sym- 
pathy with me. I like religion, but I hate 
leeches. I have one thot to give them: Get 
your living like an honest man and do not 
sneak around asking for donations. You are 
contemptible in the eyes of honest and intelli- 
gent laborers. 

It is interesting to watch people passing 
along; they will teach you a great many 
things if you judge them carefully. 



WHEN THE BABY WUZ SICK. 

To W. H. H. Sr. 

The old man wuz working hard them days, 
Had to stand by the forge and work; 

When he cum home never heard any praise 
Never had a lay-off nor a shirk. 



122 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

Wife was puny-like, sort o 'halfway sick, 
Couldn't do much but kind o' complain; 

Fidgety-like, nervous, and raise a kick — 
Would drive a feller plum insane. 

But the poor woman wuzn't a feelin' well, 
Wuz run down and used up and weak; 

She wuz a good woman, the neighbors tell, 
When she had on a healthy streak. 

Wuzn't no crank part o' the time, you see, 
Only when she wuz ugly an' cross; 

Then she wuz grumbling 'bout you an' me, 
To let us know who wuz boss. 

One night the baby got a squallin' fit 
And the old man got up and walked, 

And his wife lay an' didn't help a bit, 
Only lay there and talked, and talked. 

The old man struck for the kitchen stove, 

Struck a coal-hod and let'er fly! 
Gee! But the atmosphere wuz clove 

From profanity to the sky! 

There wuz a commotion in the house, 

Everybody riz to see the fun; 
But the baby quit her howling, and his spouse 

Wondered what he had done. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 123 

Them days wuz hard on the man, I say, 

And I knowed it done him harm; 
His face is wrinkled, and his hair is gray, 
From work in town, and living on the farm. 



THE SQUIRE'S FAD. 

The old Squire had been complaining about 
his "rheumatiz" ever since I could remember 
until about two months ago. He was a man 
who had very little sympathy for others' pain, 
but he always exacted it for his own. A change 
had come upon him. He had been visiting 
with Squire Jones for a couple of weeks and 
had taken to mental science. Henceforth he 
was to pose as a green twig. His past career 
had been very fitting for this, as he had never 
done a day's hard labor in his life, nor was he 
at all likely to in the near future. 

He made his wife give up her herbs and 
cough-drops and mercilessly ridiculed and 
scoffed at any one's temporary illness. 

His ointments he threw out and his crutch 
he burned. He was free from ills he said and 
proceeded to act accordingly. His wife asked 
him to chop some wood, but he declined, say- 
ing that he could find better use for his mind. 



124 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

Time went on and Jane, their daughter, took 
ill with pneumonia. 

"You are a fool, ignorant of the importance 
of the Science; open the windows and let the 
air circulate! Get up and wash the dishes. 
Doctor? Well, I should say not! Do you 
suppose that I would have such a humbug in 
my house? Not in a Mental Scientist's house, 
not in his back yard even! Get up, Jane, you 
only think you are sick." 

Jane got up, but she soon went to bed. Her 
eyes told the story. Next day his wife came 
running out to him as he was reading on the 
sunny side of the house. "John, our Jane is 
dead!" "Go on — you women-folks ars always 
imagining! Read the Science here and get a 
speck of sense into your system!" He came 
in and sure enough there lay Jane asleep in 
the sleep of Eternity, a victim of the lack of 
proper medical care and morbid ignorance 
had one more soul to account for. Neighbors 
were free in their comments and the Squire 
grew bitter in his views. Ten years passed 
b3 r , the Squire still a reading. One day a seri- 
ous attack of colic afflicted him; he was in 
great distress, but the Science kept him quiet 
for a long time. But the pain grew worse and 
worse. His wife saw her opportunity was 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 125 

come. "O, John, you are not sick, it's all the 
mind; here, come get up now and wash the 
dishes! Get up and don't be ignorant! You 
are not sick any more than Jane was when you 
made my child get up to die. Get up, John, 
you are all right, come." 

John, the Mental Sage, could not budge; his 
colic was too much, and in abject pity he beg- 
ged for a doctor. The doctor came and re- 
lieved him. He always claimed he would have 
got well without the doctor's aid and denied 
that he asked for medical aid. 

His health was good for a while and his 
haughtiness usual. One day he took ill with 
the pleurisy and in a little while he was down 
on the begging plane. This time his wife 
made him agree before seven of his neighbors 
that he wanted the doctor. He came very near 
dying, but the determined skill of the doctor 
saved him. When he got up and well, he went 
out one day and hanged himself in the barn. 
He died for his fad. 

I believe in common sense; I do think many 
so-called ills are imaginary, and many times 
opiates, morphines, pills and drugs are unnec- 
essary to take, but reason well applied and 
judgment used in matters cannot fail to do 
s:ood. 



126 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 



WHY I QUIT. 

Me and Sadie wuz comp'ny but I quit, 
Cause I felt certain she wuzn't it; 
I liked her in some of her ways, 
In others there wuz a sort o' haze. 

Her eyes wuz purty, and jetty black, 
An' for kisses there wuz no lack, 
But I wuz afeard from what I seen 
Of her folks, she wouldn't be lean. 

When she did the cooking I had to quit, 
For my stomach objected and took a fit; 
I thot it wuz the end of my days, 
Such cooking seems a craze. 

My innards are out of whack, 
And my health is kind o' slack; 
The taste in my mouth is green, 
I've lost track of my spleen. 

My ej r es have bleached and turned to white, 
And I'm getting lighter than a kite; 
I don't think weight like that is right, 
If I keep on I'll be out of sight. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 127 

My ribs are numbered one by one, 
My eating here will soon be done, 
The likes of it aint under the sun; 
That girl has acted like a Hun. 

I can hear the little angels call; 
I can't whisper, I can't bawl, 
And to pray I aint got the gall, 
I can only sneeze and sprawl. 

Mercy sakes, my stomach aches! 

Liver quakes, and diaphragm shakes, 

Such a fuss it makes, like a bunch of snakes, 

Such victuals are fakes: them she bakes. 

Yellow froth and mellow broth, 
Suspicious food, pain renewed! 
Tremendous death in every breath, 
Worse than grip or blistered lip. 

Dying soon but living yet, 
And I go without regret, 
For a worse dose I never met, 
When I die I'll stay you bet. 

What is tariff, what is creed, 
A dose of chloroform I need 
Administered to me with a speed 
To mix with this suspicious feed. 



128 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

A woman if a careless cook 
Is worse than am 7- crook 
I know it because I took 
A bait upon a catchy hook. 

"Upon a midnight weak and weary," 
After this I will be lean- 
CD f taking to a bake so sore, 
"Nameless here forevermore." 

I would rather die like Poe 
Than have my fearful woe 
In my stomach and be alive 
Wirh a thousand hornets in a hive. 



POLICY 

It is not always policy to have a policy un- 
less you use polic}^; it is not always polite to 
be polite. 

I knew of a case where prunes and codfish 
prevented a man from voting for the prohibi- 
tion of malt damnation. He was a grocer and 
had no views: views hurt his trade, so of 
course he could not afford to keep them in 
stock. If vou wanted to know what he thot he 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 129 

would say that he had not thot it over. When 
you asked him a week or so after he would look 
firm and say that he did not care to express 
himself, for a man in business cannot express 
himself. It occurred to me that a business 
must be pretty small when it interferes with 
a man's views and can prevent him from ex- 
pressing himself. As for me, I have views on 
several questions. For example, I have little 
patience with a society who condemns the 
drunkard and eagerly seeks his money. If a 
man's company is unfit for me, I do not want 
his help, — respect, self-respect means that 
much to me. I despise drunkenness and I do 
not care to have the support of men who are 
drunkards. I pity them and would tell all 
such to stop drinking, but I do not condemn 
them and then ask their patronage. I have 
very little respect for the Catholic who con- 
demns a Lutheran for his religion, and I have 
no more love for the Protestant who boycotts 
a Catholic because he has a rosary. It seems 
that my religion is a matter between my God 
and me, and no other person's business. I 
do not believe a person should tamper with an- 
other's business unless he seeks to interfere 
with me and mine. This poking religion down 
the throat of a person whose character and 



130 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

self-control is vile, and feeble, is a most pusil- 
lanimous manner of placing the influence for 
good in contempt and disrepute. Truth does 
not need a fog-horn for expressing itself; to 
roar about it suggests the probability of its 
being a sham and a fake. 

Some people are religious for policy; you 
belate the fact that there are hypocrites in the 
church. You pious brethren are the cause of 
it all. I do not accuse you of vile teaching, 
not at all. I simply say that you lay too 
much stress on church membership and sanc- 
timonious airs, and not on real charity, real 
fairness, real sense, and real kindness. I have 
seen some of you look with disdain at a drunk- 
ard, not because he was a drunkard and not 
because he was coarse, but because he was 
not like you. By your ways and on account of 
your self-estimation, the world takes you for 
your model (you make very poor ones), and 
fails to take the divine God. 

I believe that if each person could be made 
to realize the difference between religion and 
sectarianism he would be a better man and 
not only try to but would live a better life. 

I am no calamity-howler; I believe we are 
better and will be better. The Inquisition is a 
thing of the past. I think we know better 






A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 131 

than to use it again. Let us broaden our 
views — we have had them fashionably laced 
long enough. 

To see a long-faced person, with a long- 
eared expression of dogmatic sadness on his 
face might be taken for a sign that his mother- 
in-law had recovered from a long illness or 
that he had thrown a five dollar gold piece 
into the collection-box thinking it a copper. 

We laugh to see a preacher slip or fall; we 
smile at his unintentional humor. Why? Be- 
cause we feel that he is hiding his human na- 
ture under an ecclesiastical shield. 

Human nature is natural; joy, humor, and 
merriment are good and the religion devoid of 
comedy has little fascination for me. Its 
bloody tragedies I abhor and its morose seri- 
ousness I detest. If we are serious we should 
have a cause, but we should smile between 
the pensive frowns. 

I enjoy pure, moral uproariousness; I enjoy 
solemn reverence; I detest counterfeit. 

An old maid met me at the church door the 
other Sunday and wanted to know how my 
heart was. I told her it had been beating its 
way thru life and that I hoped it would keep 
up the busines as long as I lived. 

Then another woman inquired how m}' soul 



132 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

was. I misunderstood her. I knew my shoes 
were not as new as possible, but I never 
ddreamed of a lady cobbler. Then another 
placed her soft hand upon my arm and asked 
me if I was filled with the spirit. I told her I 
did not drink and would not care for any just 
now. She had more of a flush when I said 
that than any I ever saw a man bet on. 

I next listened to a butcher song; this may 
sound disrespectful, but I don't mean it as 
such. "Washed in the Blood" makes me al- 
ways shudder with disgust. I dislike taking 
the memory of pain in such a light, figurative 
way. After a while the pastor spoke, and, sir, 
he spoke well. But the people seemed to lay 
but very little stress on his words so I lost re- 
gard for the flock. I thot the poor fellow had 
done his job well, and instead of praising him 
I put a bank-note in his hand and told him to 
go at it again. That evening he did and he did 
it well. As he called for volunteers for his 
Master, no one seemed to rise. He called 
again and again, but no one answered. Then I 
saw two shingle-weavers whisper and nod, and 
then one of them arose and spoke. "We are 
just two but We are in for a square deal and a 
clean cut. If your Boss haint got any one to 
stick up for his rights any more than seems to 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 133 

be here, we'll take a stand. We ain't ac- 
quainted but we are in for fair play, so we'll 
stand pat and hang on for a jack-pot or none. 
Wade into them, Mr. Speaker, and we'll dig 
in!" I felt like them and got up and said: 
"Mr. Pastor, I believe you have a lot of sheep 
in your fold for they don't seem to have the 
nerve. Don't let them pull their wool over 
your eyes; I am in the game yet, and will lead 
out if you will follow suit." A silly sneer went 
over the crowd and the three of us got mad 
and went out. 

The two took in some more spirits and went 
in with their shooting irons ready. The whole 
congregation rose and then the spokesman 
said: "Well, we've got 'em started; now see 
if you kin keep 'em where they ort to be." 

I don't know, but I do not think he could. 
With tight shoes, botanical gardens on their 
heads, kid gloves on their hands, burdens on 
their hearts and shudders in their souls, it 
would be hard to stand up at all. 

I have sometimes thot it was hard to labor 
in the vineyard and avoid sour grapes, and I 
have noticed that the back seats bear a slight 
resemblance to a kindergarten for courtship. 
I do believe more than one remote cause for 
baby carriages is to be found in the prox- 



134 A VOICE OF THE PRAIKIE 

imity of the church. That is why I believe in 
them as I do. 



SXGQUAMIIE 

I hear a music in thy rills 

And my heart it fills, 

With a love that thrills; 
Every tripping of its dripping 

In the sunlight sipping, 

Of the water slipping 
Over ledges in its spray, and spreading, 
Fills me with the joy to see the heading 

Oft the water from the hills. 

In thy foam and flight of streams 
Lives my sweetest dreams 
In the lovely beams; 

And the dropping and the stopping, 
Skipping, and the hopping, 
Oft the dewdrops popping 

Here and yonder, free and fleeting, 

Keeping time to nature's beating, 

Make me think of former themes. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 135 



THE PRAIRIE FIRE 

In the western sky the hues were ashen 

And the sun was dull and drear; 
With a whine the wind was moaning lowly 

O'er the autumn prairie sere. 
Every rose had ceased her fragrant blooming, 

Every bird had flown away, 
And the signs of frost and barren winter 

Seemed to make a sad display. 

Then the crackling of the fiery monster 

Swept the prairie with its sound, 
And the demon in his hellish fury 

Soon devoured what he found. 
Children, parents, homesteads and their treas- 
ures 

Fell before his deadly track, 
All the hopes of future and its pleasures 

Left in in ruins, painted black. 



A FRIGHTFUL NIGHT 

Roy was a fine musician and a lover of mu- 
sic. He was credulous, of a nervous temper- 



136 A VOICE OP THE PRAIRIE 

ament. One night in June Roy, Lyman, and I 
roomed together in a house somewhat isolated 
from the rest of the town, and talked about 
music, poetry, and yarns in general. 

Roy and Lyman were at this time of the 
year interested in an estimable young lady who 
was unfortunate in matters of complexion; she 
had a severe attack of the signs of the prairie. 
When the southern zephyrs come along freck- 
les do remarkably well, and even grown-up 
ladies are tanned. 

It took but little argument to convince Ly- 
man that a little excitement at the expense of 
Roy would be a very delightful pastime. 

The plan was arranged, when of a sudden 
Lyman declared that he heard steps in the 
cellar. This was unexpected, and Roy turned 
white and gasped. 

All jumped up and our revolvers were ex- 
amined with care. Roy stepped behind me 
while I examined mine. With grim determin- 
ation the cellar door was opened and it was 
agreed that to venture down there would be 
too great a hazard. 

The intruder could hide in some dark corner 
and shoot us at his leisure. Theer was an 
opening on the outside of the house and the 
robber might get out there. Lyman asked Roy 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 137 

to watch that place, but Roy insisted there was 
too much personal danger connected with that 
venture. Finally we went down the outer way 
with our revolvers leveled at the unseen foe, 
Roy being armed with the lamp, whose fierce 
flames pierced unrelentingly the bosom of 
darkness. We heard Roy hum "Die Wacht 
am Rhine" as we marched down into that aw- 
ful place. 

We saw something behind a big box; Ly- 
man's knees began to shake; he stared at the 
the place with terror in his eyes. Roy began 
trembling so that I had to take the lamp. Now 
was the trying hour at hand! Roy wanted to 
run out, but Lyman whispered hoarsely that 
if he did he might be shot in the back. Roy 
considered this carefully and saw in an instant 
that such a shot would be injurious to the 
spine. 

We dared not advance, and retreat seemed 
too dangerous to be put into actual execution. 
O, if we only had help! The morrow would 
dawn and we would be angels on the golden 
stair! If but a parting word to that freckle- 
speckled bean-pole could be spoken! If we 
could have had time to write a poem or two 
voicing the inner sentiment of our aching 
hearts! Roy thot of a cake-walk he would 




138 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

have been delighted to have written, but ah, 
the world would little know of this brilliant 
flash of genius which was forced to fade in a 
damp cellar! 

There we stood crazed with fear, no one 
daring to move for a while. At last, com- 
mending my future to Higher Authority, I 
blazed away! The report echoed in an empty 
kerosene barrel and the bullent went thru an 
overcoat hung on a nail. We went forward to 
the melody of "Whistling Rufus," and pro- 
claimed sovereignty to the four corners of the 
cellar. Next we went up and Roy sat down 
to an old melodeon and played "On the Banks 
of the Wabash Far Away," and we tumbled 
in, into the room I mean. 

Then it was concluded that I should go out 
to examine the premises. When Lyman came 
out to look for me, as I had not come back in, 
he found me lying on a pile of hay near the 
stable. "Come here, Roy!" he cried; "he is 
knocked senseless! I wonder where the devil 
is who did it." Roy was speechless; his knees 
smote together and he sank collapsingly upon 
the ground. When he had mustered enough 
strength, he came over to the hay-pile and he 
and Lyman carried me over to the well and 
before Lyman could prevent it Roy had poured 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 139 

a tub of water over me. Hu! It was frigid to 
my unsuspecting body! I got angry, or in 
other words, sorely vexed. I was carried into 
the house. Roy was detailed guard and Ly- 
man acted as nurse. I was sick. The long 
hours that passed before daylight reminded me 
of the futurity of the millenium. When it did 
come I was well and hale, but poor Roy was 
in a hurry to tell his lady friend of the exploits 
of the night. 

Lyman and I can yet, as we sometimes meet 
and talk over the experiences of that night, 
see the eyes staring in abject terror and the 
shaking of the knees which were the signs that 
told us the curly-haired musician was scared. 



MOUNT RAINIER 

Lofty peak! Thy head in heaven! 

Throne of angels and crown of white; 
Thunder storms thy evening anthem; 

Lightning, they lamp at night. 

Dawn, the sun's credentials given, 
Twilight his last and grand adieu; 
Like a ruler's is thy certain bearing, 
Broad and liberal is thy view. 



140 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

In the glory of the glare and gloaming 
When the sun lights up the world, 

We can see thy high and noble grandeur 
To the nations here unfurled. 

In the dawn the kiss of dew and breezes; 

Here thy silent reign is grand; 
Thou hast pomp no human monarch 

Gained by greed and gory hand. 



TROUBLE AND ITS CULTIVATION 

A sober-faced girl of four and forty foggy 
autumns told me that it worried her greatly 
how to bring up children. She said that un- 
like other unmarried girls, she 'as a step in 
the right direction, did not consider herself 
experienced in the bringing up of children. 
She said it had caused her a great deal of anx- 
iety of late. I replied that as I was a Bene- 
dict I could not give her a satisfactory answer. 

I met an elderly bachelor who was in tears. 
I asked him concerning his trouble. He re- 
plied that he had read that the sun would cease 
to shine on the earth in 1,000,000 years; he was 
worrying over the fact that he might be 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 141 

obliged to court his future wife in the dark 
and he disliked such flagrant impropriety. 

In school trouble flourishes under proper 
cultivation; heer it blossoms and shoots out 
roots and hardens into thorns. During the 
years that should be happy we have no trouble 
in having trouble. We have lots of it on ev- 
ery corner and avenue. Year after year goes 
by, but the prices keep up with the taxes on 
this collection. 

I remember one day in school we were to 
propose examples. I proposed this one: How 
many cubic inches in one cubic foot contain- 
ing seven corns and two bunions. I stayed 
that day eight times as long as fellow would if 
he had held three aces. 

There are people who worry and have great 
trouble over their looks when in fact there 
seems to be no reason for trouble over so lim- 
ited a matter. Did you ever see a bald man 
comb his hair? Did you ever see a person 
who talked of his ability, and did he ever im- 
press you with the idea that his ability to talk 
was the most developed of all? 

A man has many troubles; he finds it hard 
to get a suitable mother for his children. Then 
as his children grow up, they swell up to such 



142 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

brief importance; even while having the 
mumps they puff up considerably. 

Mounting a broncho is troublesome, but hav- 
ing your teeth mounted is worse. Lowell 
spoke of mounting a Pegasus. Judging from 
what he said, he must have been thrown hard, 
for he seems to have awakened to the situation 
and climbed up to fame on foot. 

Lowell was a great man, but he had visions; 
one of his visions is widely known. He had 
trouble in his law practice, or rather in getting 
one. But he is not the exception. Napoleon 
had trouble with the English at Waterloo, but 
the English in true English hospitality took 
him in, gave him food, clothing and shelter, 
and gave him a house as long as he lived. In 
order that he might be free from the worry 
and trouble of life, they sent him to St. Hel- 
ena. In the same spirit of hospitality they 
sent the Boer leader Cronje to that place of 
repose. 

They have always had taking ways about 
them — a glance at the map will prove it. Their 
love for America has never been questioned; 
we noticed it in 1776, in 1812, in 1861, and now 
they are just captivated by our pale-faced heir- 
esses. Why, a millionaire may become, by 
footing the bill, the father-in-law of blooded 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 143 

lordships and hear his wife speak of going to 
see her daughter, the Duchess of Bankrupt- 
shire, or Sportsmanshall. 

People are having considerable trouble over 
the weather; the city people are afraid that it 
will rain and the farmers are afraid that it will 
not. One thinks about his shoes, the other 
concerning his crop. Now, the farmer as a 
rule gets but very little as his share for pro- 
ducing the cereals from which breadstuffs are 
made, so I can see no particular reason for his 
being afraid of the drought, while the fact of 
a pair of patent-leather shoes being ruined by 
the wet, is unbearable. 

Did you ever experience trouble in putting 
on a collar when you were in a hurry to catch 
the train which afterwards you found to be 
three hours late? One of the curious things 
about human nature is the sensation that 
creeps over you when, after tugging at a boot 
for fifteen minutes in the dark, you find the 
reason of its being too small is due to the fact 
that it is not your boot. Why is it you knock 
it against a pitcher and spill the water? 

Trouble may be cultivated variously — by 
marriage, by mortgage, by whiskey, by idle- 
ness, and by green fruit. By application of 
any of these, it will put out tiny shoots with 



144 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

slender roots and soon the plant will be in full 
bloom and its odors will be borne on the 
breeze of comment. 

Politics and religion will do much to help it 
along, and neighborly gossip will be of no 
little aid in growing trouble. 

All you have to do is to keep harrowing over 
the soil and the shoots will spring up in every 
direction. 

Before election politicians of the community 
become worried over their local significance; 
when election is over they drop out of it. 

Chills cause many much trouble. Pills, wet 
towels and doctors are consulted, interviewed, 
wrung and swallowed. I mean the pills are 
swallowed, the towels and patient's patience 
wrung; all are interviewed in a way. 

Warts cause trouble and they do not look at- 
tractive, yet they grow like expletives do in a 
sentence. They have no meaning by them- 
selves, but make things look different. Warts 
are indignant at that joke about their usurping 
the rights of the collar button in the neck. I 
think that is stretching it a little too far my- 
self. Do you agree? 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 145 



CHIPPEWA FALIjS 

I love to stand and see the art 
That mystic Nature makes; 

The color is the perfect part — 
The sleeping soul awakes. 

The shadows fade from out the view 
In gentle tints and shades; 

The picture is complete and true, 
No explanation aids. 

The wild, unharnessed spirit free, 

Its genius shows to thot 
That charms like these in living glee, 

Can never here be bot. 



A NAP IN A STRAW PILE 

Did you ever come home from college and 
when night came on, go into your old bed- 
room and lie down on the newly-filled straw 
tick? The feeling of being at home and the 



146 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

pinch of a cricket made you on the alert and 
an air of expectancy would rise: when will 
the next bite come? The air would be some- 
what sulphurous and ejaculative, but after all 
you can sleep well on a straw tick newly filled. 

Lyman was a poet; at least he had vague ap- 
prehensions that something was the matter 
with him. I knew him to be an honest, kind 
and conscientious feliow. He was pathetic and 
serious. He had had a love-spasm and some- 
thing was wrong with his neck; it pained him 
severely at times. Poor fellow! The object of 
his affection married a crutch-maker, and so 
our friend's sweetheart was supported on 
crutches. 

We were sentimental, as true poets should 
be, but Lyman showed it more than I had the 
courage to do. 

It was in June, that one day we planned a 
trip thru the country on our bicycles. In a day 
or so we were spinning down the road, riding 
side by side past farm houses, pastures and 
fields, dreaming of what a splendid thing it 
would be, were we famous bards of all we 
could survey. 

You cannot tell what lies hidden inside a 
poet's head, and I dare say it was not at all 
necessary to begin guessing; you do not need 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 147 

it in life. What a man wants is a business col- 
lege diploma showing the expense to which he 
has gone to realize common sense. 

I had noticed that Lyman was speaking 
rather often of my old sweetheart, whom I had 
quit going to see. By careful diagnosis I thot 
I saw symptoms of lovesickness, or rather an 
affectionate indisposition to dwell on her name. 

We had laid out our route past her home 
and in the afternoon we arrived there. Lyman 
was poetically courteous, but I noticed a look 
of surprise in her pretty black eyes at my 
coming up to the doorstep where the ivy vine 
hangs around the door. I have seen several 
other things hang around her door having the 
color of ivy and with the rare tenacity of that 
vine. 

She bade us in and got Lyman interested in 
a conversation with her mother, while she and 
I went for a pail of water. On the way down 
to the well I made plain that we must go to 
the neighboring town that evening, and altho 
we would like to stop with her folks the need 
of our going made it impossible. 

When we got back to the house Lyman was 
discoursing entertainingly on Byron and Shel- 
ley while her mother tried several times to 
ask him if he had been born again and had had 



148 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

an awakening, and something about spirits and 
experience. I thot I would exonerate him and 
told her that he had not had a drop on the way 
down as the road ran across the country and 
temptations were impossible of access along 
the whole distance. Her mother had little 
faith in my remark and totally ignored it. 

The evening passed by very pleasantly, and 
among the noticeable features of the evening 
was the solicitude with which Lyman so often 
spoke of its getting so late and the danger of 
the moon going down. He spoke of the dis- 
tance to the next town, little thinking that I 
had told her of the utter uselessness of asking 
us to remain with her folks over night. 

We recited poems and I sang some of the 
old songs we sang when I came to see her. 

The moon was growing dimmer and dim- 
mer, and at last we broke up (I don't mean the 
way she and I had broken up some few years 
before) and mounted our wheels. In a few 
minutes the moon had disappeared and dark- 
ness began to settle down on us. 

Lyman had met her in another town some 
months before this, and had formulated a liking 
for her similar to the one I had possessed in 
the past, but which I had now brot out greatly 
revised in the late edition. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 149 

"I thot they would ask us to stay/' sighed 
the weary poet. "I gave her hints enough but 
I suppose she felt disinclined to have you stay, 
too. I wish you two were on better terms" 
(down at the well she said it was a pity I had 
not come alone), "for I hate this walk. Say, 
Billy, v/hat caused you two to break up?" "It 
is too bad that the moon went down, Lyman, 
but I suppose we must bear it to town." 

Presently a dark object arose near the road 
and it soon developed to be a straw-pile. Ly- 
man insisted on lying down and resting and 
soon the stars had said their good nights and 
Lyman was writing in his dreams, poems of 
immortal beauty, and fair women were sing- 
ing praises of his verses. Lyman was a true 
fellow, and his heart was illumed by many 
beautiful ideas, but the love business was not 
a profitable affair for him. 

I awoke towards morning and saw him in 
his peaceful sleep. The bars of tempting gold 
streaked the eastern sky; the birds were wak- 
ing up and twittering in the trees; the grain 
and flowers were fresh with dew, and the air 
was sweet with wild perfume. At last Lyman 
awoke and rubbed his eyes. He saw a house 
near by and proposed going there for a drink. 
We approached the door just as the boys were 



150 A VOICE OF THE PEALRIE 

going out to milk. Lyman lingered a mo- 
ment, then walked up and rapped on the door, 
and to his great surprise who should appear 
but his sweetheart number two, a young lady 
whom he had met after the first had married 
the crutch-maker. Here stood the poet-lover 
with his sweater covered with straw, unwash- 
ed, and hungry beyond definite comprehension. 

Lyman gave one gasp and climbed onto his 
wheel, riding away in utter exasperation. I 
was out of breath when I caught up to him; I 
was also out of a breakfast. 

When I had gained his presence he was sit- 
ting down and writing a poem entitled: 
"Crushed by a Straw." I got the inspired im- 
pulse and started one on "How to Cure Bun- 
ions on Heroic Feats." 

We reached the town for breakfast and along 
about ten o'clock I met him coming up the 
street, sad and despondent; he had failed to 
get his daylight opus into the village paper. 

"It is remarkable how little these editors 
know," said the disappointed straw-pile poet. 
"I can't bear their poor judgment." As we 
rode along the road across the winding Sioux 
his good-humor came back and he could see 
some exquisite romance attached to the straw- 
pile. The only thing attached to it that I could 



A VOICE OP THE PKAIRIE 151 

see was the ground and two poets to fame 
and to blankets unknown. He spoke of the 
stars watching over us (I noticed a bull-dog in 
the same business as the stars) and the blue 
canopy as our covers. It is a difficult thing 
to think of the halls of fame and lay a weary 
head on a pillow of straw at the same time. 

As you make your way so must you walk; I 
might say, as you make your bed you must 
awake. 



BOILS AND OTHER HOT STUFF 

Boils are points of interest. I think they 
are too sensitive, especially when in the flush 
of their existence; in that respect they re- 
semble some people. 

If you rob them they get sore, and yet, they 
itch for a rubbing. 

I saw one not long ago; it was situated in a 
prominent place; in fact, by going into detail 
I might say it is located on an inclined plane; 
a woman had seen fit and proper to wear one 
on the peak of her beak. The fact of it being 
on an inclined plane reminds me of a lazy dog. 
An inclined plane is a slope up and a slow pup 
is a lazy dog inclined on a decline. This may 



152 A VOICE OP THE PRAIRIE 

tend to confuse, but the boil was profuse, and 
you should not refuse if I meekly diffuse in- 
formation in conformation with her deforma- 
tion. 

I had a boil that was hard to beat; it was 
out of sight, being attached to my medulla 
oblongata. I tried to keep an eye on it but 
failed. I walked erect and stiff-necked, like a 
man after he has been elected alderman for the 
first and last time. I took a great many pains 
with that boil; it seemed that a new franchise 
had been secured for running a line of nerves 
straight from that spot to headquarters. 

I got mad one day after much vexatious feel- 
ing in the sequestered place on my neck, and 
landed a solar-plexus knockout on the spot. I 
immediately entered the field of astronomy and 
saw stars of various magnitudes. But I had 
knocked the stuffing out of it, and it acted like 
a pneumatic tire — collapsed; and like a saucy 
boy just thrashed, it dried right up. 

My better .5 prepared a dish the other day. 
As she placed it on the dinner table I must 
confess I looked searchingly into her kind and 
loving eyes, and then with some suspicion I 
viewed the mysterious dish. She called it a 
Spanish Boil. I was about to say that such 
a boil would make any person distrust the 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 153 

motive and mistrust the intent of any govern- 
ment. I know that we must go from the known 
to the unknown. But I had always heard that 
it was the Related Unknown; here was some- 
thing which I had never come across in all my 
experience before. 

I do not like to hurt her feelings for I do 
not believe it is right to hurt a person's feel- 
ings needlessly, but I had dire forebodings that 
my feelings would be hurt if I partook of that 
dish. I never like boils as a rule, and this was 
not an exception to the rule. Besides, I be- 
lieve in every person's welfare and each one's 
absolute control of his stomach. I think a man 
should respect his better half, but I object to 
having her become an improper fraction. Im- 
propriety has no place in a proper family. But, 
you know, a woman can work miracles with 
her eyes; she can make a man her abject 
slave, so abject, if you please, that he enjoys 
his serfdom. A woman is a loving companion, 
but a tyrannical master. In her devotion she 
is — well — you know what she is, — she is be- 
yond description. 

A woman with a boil is very irritating and 
easily irritated. I knew this, but of course a 
fellow does not care to take any chances. I 
would rather do things that agree with my 



154 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

stomach than insult it and do so to agree with 
her, altho I always do take pleasure in pleas- 
ing her. 

We cannot always do as we wish, and I 
could not in this case. I hid that soup, altho 
I felt like a martyr. 

Of a sudden Margarine came in and said she 
had poured the fly-paper water into that big 
soup bowl. She explained by saying that she 
thot it of no use and so poured the fly poison 
into it. 

Boulevards! Here I had drank death and 
soon would be an angel! Heavens! My dar- 
ling wife cast a hasty glance at my life insur- 
ance policy on the clock-shelf and fainted. I 
had to get some cold water to bring her out of 
her trance. I forgot about dying and was 
verybusy making her come to, so that I might 
bid her an appropriate farewell. When she 
regained her senses her first remark was: 
"When I cook soup for another husband he 
will know it; mark my word!" I pressed her 
to my bosom and tried to comfort her. "Are 
you dying, love?" "Yes, pet," said I, "dying to 
live long enough to see your second husband 
eat soup!" 

Then I told her not to hurry me for the poi- 
son had not had time to act. She looked into 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 155 

my eyes to see if I meant it, and as my seri- 
ous look served its purpose, big tears came 
into her eyes; her lips began to quiver, and in 
sobs she put her arms around my neck. When 
a fellow gets it in the neck that way, he feels 
like quitting. "Sweetheart," said I, "is there 
anything wrong with that life insurance policy 
on the shelf?" "What do you think I mar- 
ried you for?" she sobbed. "To feed me soup!" 
"No, no, I did not! You know I love you, 
even tho you never got me that sealskin cape 
when you knew Mrs. Pique were to have one!" 

She wears a sealskin cape and I eat no soup. 
We have compromised and after this I shall 
not be obliged to have a boil in my stomach. 
The only thing which seems to better itself by 
being boiled down is news. 

In closing, sometime a fellow is obliged if 
he avoids being obliged. 

SUNSET ON THE OLYMPICS 

To E. C. K. 

When the evening shadows linger 
And the pine trees whisper low; 

And the sun is setting yonder, 
And the golden gleamings glow, 

O'er the grand Olympic mountains 



156 A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

As in silent vigil there 
On the western side they challenge 
Any equal to compare. 

In the evening breeze we see them, 

With their caps of snowy white. 
Seem to turn to colors golden 

In the sunset's tender light; 
Across the Sound the}* tower, 

With a grandeur most sublime; 
On their thrones of ancient ages 

They defy the marks of time. 

Here the sun in blazing splendor 

Melts his sterner glow to gold, 
And embraces in his fervor 

Evening's tresses as of old; 
Then a kiss to us that wonder 

In his last farewell he gives: 
Each can feel his lips so tender. 

Makes the gazer glad he lives. 

In the valleys 'raong the cedars 

Soft good nights are heard in love.. 
And the stars come out to greet us 

From their celestial homes above; 
Then the blue and gold have blended 

And the wind is drifting by, 
As in rapture we are gazing 

Up above us in the sky. 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 



CONTENTS 

A fatal suspicion 8 

A frightful night 135 

Agricultural remarks 76 

A life 9 

A long time ago 23 

A midnight reverie 15 

Among the graves - 44 

A nap in a straw pile 145 

An evening with my album 25 

A romance from the farm 18 

A vision from the unknown 34 

Away on a sunbeam 53 

Behind the curtain 89 

Boils and other hot stuff 151 

Chippewa Falls — 145 

Courtship in the grass 17 

Do not touch it -. 11 

Dust to dust —. * 32 

Evanescence and permanence 15 

Fate 29 

Fragments. 13 

His pedigree 54 



n A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE 

In fashion's realm 116 

In love - 66 

In the moonlight on Big Stone Lake 39. 

'Lays of nature 24 

Leola. 12 

Manhood 21 

Margarine's essay 68 

McRobes 63 

Me and her wuz sweethearts 104 

Mount Rainier 139 

On Puget Sound 113 

On the banks of the Missouri 38 

Policy 128 

Reading a book 85 

Rose of Traverse 33 

Rotating on rubber 93 

Rough Riders at El Caney 16 

Sad. yet dear 31 

Since Mary has gone 26 

Snoqualmie 134 

Spooks above 106 

Sunset on the Olympics 156 

The disease 57 

The drunkard's dream - 9 

The gossip 3 2 

The haunted mansion 47 

The Indian mound 27 

The last of a century 5 1 



A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE III 

The mark of a command 41 

The music teacher - 61 

The ocean of time 52 

The omen of the night 83 

The prairie fire 135 

The prairie home 36 

The real idol 31 

The silent voice 20 

The squire's fad 123 

The wall flower's lament 28 

The welkin banner 27 

The winds of life 21 

Trouble and its cultivation 140 

True worth 30 

Two hearts 38 

Under the flowers 28 

War 14 

When dad wuz out 65 

When father went 73 

When the baby wuz sick 121 

When the time has come 35 

Why I quit 126 



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"A VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE" 

PROSE AND POEMS 

BY WIXiHBlXiM HUGO METER 

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